Medvedev rallies past Davidovich Fokina in Rotterdam

Russian Daniil Medvedev, the No 6 seed, reached the second round of the Rotterdam Open by beating Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 at the Rotterdam Ahoy on Tuesday evening.

Medvedev, ranked No 11, will face the winner of the match between Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp and French lucky loser Quentin Halys next.

It was an inauspicious beginning for Medvedev, who entered the match with three consecutive losses to his name in Rotterdam and was broken twice in the opening set, dropping it 6-4. The sixth seed responded well to the pressure and turned the match around, dropping just four more games the rest of the way.

Medvedev: “I managed to use the crucial opportunities:

“I just managed to play a little bit better,” he said after the win, which improved his record to 6-2 on the season. “I don’t want to say that I played much better, but [I played] a little bit better. I managed to use the crucial opportunities a little bit better and I feel like he was missing a little bit more than the first set. All together I feel like I changed just a few millimeters of tactics if we can say like this, and all of this happened to work so I’m really happy about it.”

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Medvedev was asked if his game plan in the second set was simply to not miss.

“I mean, that’s my game. So when I miss that’s not very good,” he said. “Those are the matches where I struggle, when I miss. I feel like in the first set I didn’t miss that much. You miss it by an inch and he puts it in by an inch. And that’s what happened. A little bit in the first set for him. And that’s what happened for me in the second and third and sometimes tennis is about small margins.”

Rotterdam ATP250, other first-round results (Rotterdam Ahoy, hard, EUR 2.074.505, most recent results first):

• Alex De Minaur vs. Andrey Rublev: Wednesday in Rotterdam
• Botic van de Zandschulp vs. Quentin Halys: Wednesday in Rotterdam
• Holger Rune vs. Constant Lestienne: Wednesday in Rotterdam
• Tim van Rijthoven vs. Maxime Cressy: Wednesday in Rotterdam
• Benjamin Bonzi vs. Jannik Sinner : Wednesday in Rotterdam
• Stefanos Tsitsipas (1) beat Emil Ruusuvuori: 7-5, 6-1
• Felix Auger-Aliassime (3) beat Lorenzo Sonego: 6-2, 6-3
• Alexander Zverev (8) beat SoonWoo Kwon: 6-4, 7-6 (4)
• Tallon Griekspoor (WC) beat Mikael Ymer (Q): 7-6 (7), 7-5
• Hubert Hurkacz (5) beat Roberto Bautista Agut: 7-5, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (4)
• Gijs Brouwer (WC) beat Marc-Andrea Huesler: 6-3, 7-5
• Gregoire Barrere (Q) beat David Goffin: 6-0, 7-6 (3)
• Stan Wawrinka beat Alexander Bublik: 7-6 (5), 6-4
• Grigor Dimitrov beat Aslan Karatsev (Q): 6-1, 6-3
• Richard Gasquet beat Pablo Carreno Busta (7): 2-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2