More first round results from ATP tournaments on Day Two have seen a few upsets and a number of qualifiers make it through to the second round.
In Montpellier, the French crowd enjoyed two home nation wins from three matches.
Gilles Simon drew on all his experience in his more than two hour battle with 142nd ranked Yannick Maden.
He began in style in set one, winning 71% of points on his serve and 52% of points on his opponent’s serve.
Simon broke twice from five chances, and held all of his 4 service games.
He led 6-1.
Maden turned it round in set two, converting his only break point, while Simon wasted all of his three.
Other than that, the set was won at the margins, and the German levelled at 1-6 6-4.
Set three was appearing dire for Simon, down 2-4. Breaking back, Simon took Maden to a tie break, both players having converted two breaks from two chances.
Simon proved the steadier, successful seven points to three and victorious 6-1 4-6 7-6(3).
Others through to round two were:
Ricardas Berankis defeating wildcard Julien Benneteau 6-3 7-6(6)
Karen Khachanov defeating David Ferrer (7) 6-7(5) 6-3 6-4
Jeremy Chardy defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas 4-6 7-5 7-5
Qualifier Carlos Taberner defeating fellow qualifier Norbert Gombos 7-6(5) 7-6(1)
Quito first round:
(Day One) Victor Estrella Burgos (6) defeated Thomaz Bellucci 4-6 6-4 6-2
Victor has now extended his winning streak at this tournament to 16, having won the previous 3 successive titles in Quito.
Next up for him is the winner of Gerald Melzer and Marco Cecchinato.
Qualifier Roberto Carballes Baena defeated fellow qualifier Federico Gaio 7-6(5) 6-3
Thiago Monteiro defeated Horacio Zeballos (5) 6-4 7-6(8)
Sofia first round:
Qualifier Martin Klizan defeated wildcard Alexander Donski 7-5 6-1
Denis Istomin defeated wildcard 16 year old Adrian Andreev 6-3 6-4
Andreev was unranked before this tournament and was as high as 1747 in June 2016 when he was 15.
He has only played the two events prior to Sofia this year - he received a wildcard to the Moselle Open qualifying in 2016, where he lost in the first round.
He played in the qualifying rounds at the Sofia tournament last year, losing in the opening round there too.
In 2018: Andreev, with his first main draw appearance, had a chance to mix it with the top tier crowd.
Bulgaria is hoping for a bright future from the teenager, maybe one day following in the footsteps of its current star Grigor Dimitrov.
Viktor Troicki (6) defeated qualifier Earnests Gulbis 6-3 6-7(2) 6-3
Qualifier Mirza Basic defeated lucky loser in qualifying Florian Mayer 6-4 6-1
Qualifier Jozef Kovalik defeated Radu Albot 6-3 6-3
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