Mark Lajal loses Athens ATP250 qualifier against former world top 25 player
Estonia's top tennis player Mark Lajal lost his ATP 250 Hellenic Championship qualifying match in Athens, Greece, going down in straight sets 7:6(1), 7:5 to Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff.
The Athens tournament is in its inaugural year, and replaces on the calendar an ATP250-level competition in Belgrade, which had been running for four years. Fittingly, the top seed in the Greek tournament is veteran Serbian star Novak Djokovic.
Struff two years ago was on the cusp of breaking into the top 20 players worldwide, and is currently ranked 90th by the ATP.
In a closely contested opening set, neither player attained any break points, though the German had the better of the Estonian in the following tie-break.
In the third game of the second set, Lajal, currently ranked 148th by the ATP, failed to convert two break points though he then saved three himself; with things at 5:4 in games in Struff's favor, Lajal held his serve to love, but again failed to capitalize on a break point. Ultimately, it was Struff who went on to make the only break of the match in the next game, to take the win.
Struff won 84 percent of points on his first serve and delivered 12 aces; the respective figures for Lajal were 68 percent and five aces.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Anders Nõmm
