Mark Lajal through to Libema Open main draw in Netherlands
Estonia's top-ranked tennis player Mark Lajal is through to the main draw at the Libema Open ATP 250 grass tournament in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, after beating American player Reilly Opelka in two sets, 7–6 (3), 6–3.
Lajal, 22, now ranked 195th in the world and seeded eighth in qualifying, faced Opelka, once ranked as high as 17th worldwide and also at 211 cm the joint tallest-ever ATP player, together with Ivo Karlovic.
He is also a noted serving machine, as evidenced by the 16 aces he served in the opening qualifier.
This came out even against Lajal – the American won 78 percent of his first-serve points against Lajal and pulled off eight aces, but the Estonian, who famously did himself great credit against Spain's Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon last year, responded in kind, winning 49 of 59 service points (83 percent) and hitting six aces.
The entire encounter took an hour and 17 minutes.
The outcome means Lajal will also rise to his career-best ranking next week, at 188th in the ATP rankings, three places above his career high so far.
The top seed in the main draw in Den Bosch, one of the first grass tournaments of the summer, is world No. 11 Daniil Medvedev.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Anders Nõmm
