News 16/07/2019

Fantastic Bedene upsets defending champion in first round

Last year, Italy’s Marco Cecchinato won the title in Umag, and this year, he unfortunately fell at the first hurdle. Slovenia’s Aljaž Bedene is to blame, as he played an outstanding match, beating the Italian 6:3, 6:2, and moving into the last sixteen.

“This is undeniably a great win. For me, Umag feels like a tournament on home turf even though it doesn’t take place in Slovenia. There, we don’t have a competition on this level, so the Slovenian fans are happy to come here. I have tried to give them something to be happy about and I’ve done it. I’ve showed that I can play great tennis and I could not have imagined a better start to the tournament,” Bedene said.

In other first-round matches, the young and talented Jannik Sinner defeated his Portuguese opponent Sousa (1:6, 6:3, 6:4), and will meet Bedene next. Czechia’s Jiří Veselý stopped the returnee Cedrik-Marcel Stebe after three hours and five minutes (7:6, 3:6, 7:6).

Yesterday, Umag saw the completion of the qualifiers as well. The most dramatic and interesting match was the one between Spain’s Tommy Robredo and Italy’s Salvatore Caruso, with Caruso winning 5:7, 6:4, 6:3. The program continues today, with two Croatian players who have learned the names of their opponents. Viktor Galović will face the Hungarian Attila Balázs, while Nino Serdarušić will play against the Argentinian Marco Trungelliti.

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