Fils wins generational battle against Auckland defending champion Gasquet

No 6 seed Arthur Fils reached the second round of the Auckland Open by beating defending champion Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-4 at the ASB Tennis Arena on Tuesday evening.

Eleven months ago, the pair met for the first time in Montpellier, in what would be a significant moment for Fils. The then 18-year-old upset his senior compatriot, claiming his first ever win on the ATP Tour.

Now, meeting for a second time with Fils up to No 35 in the world and Gasquet returning to Auckland as the defending champion, again it was Fils who played the better of the two, with the Frenchman winning comprehensively with a break in each set.

The defeat means that Gasquet, a former world No 7, will fall out of the world’s top 100 for the first time since 2005.

“So nice to play with him,” said Fils of Gasquet, who is 17 years older than him. “He’s a great champion, who’s led an unbelievable career. Great to be on the court with him, I hope it’s not the last time.”

Fils out-muscles and out-finesses Gasquet in impressive performance

For both men, this was a tough first round draw. As the No 5 seed, Fils will have felt hard done by squaring up against the defending champion in his opening match, as will Gasquet have felt about playing the world No 35 in a tournament where he has 250 points to defend.

The pair produced high quality tennis, however, with both Fils and Gasquet maintaining positive winner to unforced error ratios across the match. It was Fils who struck far more winners, with the 19-year-old belting 23 across the two sets, and just seven unforced errors.

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While many of Fils’ winners came courtesy of his muscular forehand, the NextGen Finals runner up also displayed brilliant touch with the ball, landing dropshot winners from the baseline and at one stage executing a glorious lob over his opponent’s head into the back corner.

All it took was two poor serving games from Gasquet to decide the match. In the sixth game of the first set, Fils got up 0-40 on Gasquet’s serve, and was able to capitalise on his third attempt. The second was a repeat, but this time in the third game, where again Fils went ahead 0-40 on Gasquet’s serve and broke the veteran on his third chance.

Fils, ranked No 35, will face Portuguese Nuno Borges next.

Auckland ATP 250, other first-round results (ASB Tennis Arena, hard, USD 739.945, most recent results first):

• Max Purcell (8) beat Kiranpal Pannu (WC): 6-4, 6-4
• Sebastian Ofner (7) beat Denis Shapovalov (WC): 6-4, 6-2
• Roberto Carballes Baena beat Roberto Bautista Agut: 6-4, 6-3
• Fabian Marozsan beat Gael Monfils: 6-4, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (4)
• Nuno Borges beat Alex Michelsen (Q): 0-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3
• Botic van de Zandschulp beat Christopher Eubanks (5): 7-6 (5), 6-2
• Alexandre Muller (Q) beat Benjamin Bonzi: 6-3, 7-5
• Luca Van Assche (Q) beat J.J. Wolf: 6-4, 6-2
• Alejandro Tabilo (Q) beat Borna Gojo: 1-6, 6-3, 6-2
• Daniel Altmaier beat Marcos Giron: 7-6 (5), 6-2
• Taro Daniel beat Aleksandar Vukic: 7-5, 7-5

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