Hubert Hurkacz advanced to the second round of the Gonet Geneva Open on a rainy Tuesday. The sixth seed defeated French wild card Arthur Cazaux 6-3, 6-4 in his first appearance at this ATP 250 clay-court event. Despite a rain delay that disrupted the morning schedule, Hurkacz managed to secure his victory in 77 minutes, hitting 17 winners.
“I was waiting, seeing if it was going to rain [or] if it wasn’t,” Hurkacz commented on the weather conditions. “We went to the gym in the morning, did some stuff, but didn’t have an opportunity to hit before the match. But with the conditions here today, we just [went] straight out. [I’m] happy with the performance today, it was definitely not an easy match.”
Hurkacz recently reached the quarter-finals at the ATP Masters 1000 in Rome and showed no signs of fatigue against Cazaux. Although he lost a break lead in the second set, he won four of the last five games to secure his win and improve his record against Cazaux to 2-0.
The former No. 6 player in the PIF ATP Rankings previously won a clay-court ATP 250 event in Estoril last year. His next opponent is Arthur Rinderknech, who achieved a notable victory over Miomir Kecmanovic with scores of 6-4, 6-2.
Rinderknech performed strongly by winning 25 out of 31 first-serve points according to Infosys ATP Stats. This marked his first Top 50 win since October last year. Additionally, Fabian Marozsan also secured a win by defeating Brazilian qualifier Karue Sell with a scoreline of 6-1, 6-1 within just 45 minutes.