Spaniard Fernando Verdasco pulled off another first-round upset at a Grand Slam, knocking out ninth seed Alexander Zverev 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 in a match that resumed Tuesday afternoon after being suspended on Monday because of darkness.
The 33-year-old Spaniard, who also beat fifth seed Rafael Nadal to start the 2016 Australian Open, broke the #NextGenATP German eight times to advance in two hours and 52 minutes. The contest was suspended after two sets on Monday, and Zverev looked the stronger of the two when the match resumed, gaining an early break to lead 3-1 in the third set.
But the left-handed Verdasco won five of the set's final six games to lead two sets to one. He dominated the fourth set, leading 5-2 before gaining another break to go ahead 2-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series.
“Winning the third set gave me a lot of confidence... and I think it was hard for him on the other side, to start again and have to win two more sets,” Verdasco said.
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Verdasco improves to 13-1 in Roland Garros first-round contests, with his only opening loss coming in 2005 against Robin Soderling. The Spaniard, who's making his 56th consecutive Grand Slam appearance, will next play Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
“I'm very happy with the way that I played and being able to beat a player like Alexander, who is one of the players in such great form, not because of only winning Rome, also the weeks before and the last year. So it was a great victory for me,” Verdasco said.
Zverev had been fresh off his third title of the year and his maiden ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome earlier this month (d. Djokovic). The win catapulted the 20-year-old German to No. 10 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, the first time he had joined the elite group.
“He played very well. He played very smart as well. Tried to push me back a lot, which he did. And I didn't feel the ball on my racquet very well, so I played very short and very defensive all the time,” Zverev said. “But the world doesn't stop now. I'm still No. 4 in the [Emirates ATP] Race to London and I'm still doing okay this year.”
See Who's Pushing Zverev In The Race To London
Another #NextGenATP player, Karen Khachanov, made his way safely through to the second round on his Roland Garros main draw debut as he defeated Chilean Nicolas Jarry 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-1. The 21-year-old Khachanov moved up three spots to No. 6 in the Emirates ATP Race to Milan on Monday following a quarter-final run last week in Lyon (l. to Tsonga).
He will look to advance beyond the second round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time when he next plays Tomas Berdych. The 13th-seeded Czech, a former Roland Garros semi-finalist, opened with a 6-1, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 win over German Jan-Lennard Struff. Berdych also enjoyed a strong showing in Lyon on the eve of Roland Garros, finishing runner-up to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Go inside the tournament at RolandGarros.com.