Mark Lajal opens his ATP Challenger campaign in China with hard-fought win
Estonia's top-ranked tennis player Mark Lajal is through to round two of the ATP Challenger 100 tournament in Wuxi, China, after beating Japan's Renta Tokuda in straight sets, 7–6 (2), 6–4.
Lajal is the sixth seed, but still needed an hour and 44 minutes to win a fairly hard-fought match.
This followed a loss in South Korea last week in round two of the ATP Challenger 75 competition in Gwangju, marking his return to the court after nearly two months out due to health issues.
The Gwangju game, too, had been an even more long and drawn-out affair — over three and a half hours against Taiwanese player Yu Hsiou Hsu.
Despite this, Lajal, 22, rose six places in the freshly released ATP rankings, to 158th in the world, 13 spots below his career-highest place, attained last fall.
Tokuda, Lajal's opponent in Wuxi, is ranked 330th by the ATP.
On the day, Lajal fell behind 2–0 following an early break in the opening set, but went on to take four consecutive games to take a 4–2 lead after a break of his own. Tokuda immediately broke back to level the score, however, and the set went to a tiebreak. The Estonian prevailed convincingly 7–2.
In set two, Lajal secured the first break to go 2–1 up, but then immediately lost his own service game. However, he broke again in the ninth game to lead 5–4 and then held serve comfortably to seal the win on his first match point.
Lajal served up six aces and committed four double faults in the course of the match, and converted four of the 10 break points presented to him, compared with three out of nine for Tokuda.
He next faces Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin, currently ranked No. 281 in the world, but who ranked as high as 39th in the world a few years back. Kukushkin defeated China's Zhang Tianhui (ATP No. 798), 7–6 (4), 6–3 in the first round.
The pair have met twice before, with the head-to-head at 1–1: In the 2025 Australian Open qualifiers, Lajal won 6–0, 6–2, but earlier this January at the Oeiras Challenger in Portugal, Kukushkin came out on top 6–7 (4), 6–2, 7–5.
As for Estonia's other players, second-highest ranking men's player Daniil Glinka remains in 178th place. Kristjan Tamm is down to 1,050th, Markus Mölder to 1,201st, and Oliver Ojakäär 1,561st in the world.
Italy's Jannik Sinner continues as world number one after winning his fifth consecutive Masters tournament at the weekend.
In the women's rankings, Elena Malõgina stays in 295th position and is the highest-placing Estonian. Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus) continues as world number one, followed by Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan). Former number one Iga Świątek (Poland) has risen to third.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
