Mark Lajal reaches Libema Open round two before sometimes rowdy spectators
Estonia's top tennis player Mark Lajal overcame Laslo Djere (Serbia) in straight sets 6–2, 6–4 in round one of the ATP 250-level Libema Open in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, in slightly odd fashion thanks to a small minority of members of the crowd.
The result gave Lajal, 22, his second career win in an ATP main draw and came after he made it through qualifying in the grass court competition – including with a win over U.S. serving machine and former world number 17 Reilly Opelka.
Djere, 30, a compatriot of Novak Djokovic though ethnically Hungarian, has ranked as high as the top 30 in the world, and currently ranks 64th, 131 places above Lajal at present.
Lajal broke Djere's serve twice in the first set and once more in the second. While Djere had four break points with things at 2–2 in the second set, the Estonian fended off all of these.
Djere also could not point to the crowd by this stage; in set one, he had called for the ejection of three boisterous spectators who had apparently decided they were for team Lajal. While seemingly swigging beers, commentators pointed out that they were not being noisy during points, only between them. Despite this, their removal to the back of the stand after the umpire spoke to them was not enough to placate Djere, who steadfastly refused to return to court until they were ejected from the Autotron Rosmalen stadium altogether.
This was duly done, but Lajal, who seemed to have taken the episode as a whimsical interlude and was up and ready to play throughout, went on to win the set anyway.
Post-match statistics show Lajal's serve remains strong, landing his first service in 77 percent of the time and winning 82 percent of points from the first serve. By comparison, over the course of the entire match, Djere managed to take only eight points off Lajal's first serve.
The entire encounter lasted an hour and 19 minutes.
Lajal now faces fifth seed Hubert Hurkacz of Poland, ranked 32nd in the world, who placed as high as sixth as recently as last August and reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2021, and the (hard court) Australian Open quarters just last year.
The Pole, 28, beat Roberto Bautista Agut (ATP 50) of Spain in three sets in round one, 7–6 (7–2), 6–4.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Siim Boikov
