Kyle Edmund beaten as Aljaz Bedene wins again
Tuesday 2 May 2017 17:23, UK
Kyle Edmund crashed to a surprise first-round defeat to world No 242 Joao Domingues at the Estoril Open, while Aljaz Bedene was victorious in Istanbul.
British No 2 and seventh seed Edmund took to the courts in Portugal on his favoured clay-court surface, but he was up against it from the early stages against his 23-year-old opponent, eventually falling to a 6-4 3-6 7-6 defeat.
Domingues had battled through qualifying to reach the first round in his first event on the main Tour this year, and he settled quickest to claim the first set before Edmund rallied to win the second.
After just two breaks of serve in the match, a see-saw third set ensued with both men breaking the other on three separate occasions but it was Edmund with the initiative, leading 5-2 at one stage in the decider.
Domingues battled back to take the match into a tie-break and as it ticked into a third hour it was the Portuguese qualifier who emerged victorious, and sets up a match with Kevin Anderson in the next round.
Also in Estoril, eighth seed Benoit Paire suffered a surprise first-round defeat losing in straight sets to Nicolas Almagro but 35-year-old Tommy Robredo, playing under his protected ranking, chalked up a win over Evgeny Donskoy.
In Turkey at the Istanbul Open, British No 4 Aljaz Bedene continued his superb form with a 17th win from his last 18 matches.
The world No 58 was beaten by Lucas Pouille in the Budapest final at the weekend but he was back on court to beat Hungarian wild card Marton Fucsovics 7-6 4-6 6-4 and set-up a second-round tie with world No 6 Milos Raonic.
Bedene has won his last two Challenger tournaments prior to his run in Hungary last week and needed almost three hours to see off Fucsovics, breaking serve in the final game of the match for the victory.
The week's other tournament is in Germany where there were routine first-round wins for home favourites Mischa Zverev and Jan Lennard Struff.
Zverev was too strong for Dustin Brown, winning in straight sets while Struff beat German wild card Daniel Masur to remain on course for a possible final against brother Alexander, who is in the bottom half of the draw and gets his campaign underway on Wednesday.
