Dubai: Fourth seed Damir Dzumhur was the last man entering the second round with an emphatic 6-3, 6-2 win over German qualifier Yannick Maden in a rain-interrupted second day of the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open on Tuesday.
Shortly after Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri had sent top seed and tournament favourite packing off in three sets, it was the 25-year-old Dzumhur sweeping off his older opponent with ease and book a second round spot against Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy.
The world No.30 from Bosnia and Herzegovina who last year reached the quarter-final on debut while shocking No.3 Stan Wawrinka, had made it to the quarter-finals at Montpellier earlier in February. However, he has been suffering with a viral infection since then.
“I have been feeling miserable after the fever. And now the cough is causing me so much of discomfort. I enjoy the conditions here as they suit my style of play. The plan tonight was to keep things simple as he [Maden] had the advantage of playing two rounds of the qualifying,” Dzumhur said.
“Tomorrow is a new day and I am here to see how much I can challenge myself and how far I can go into this tournament,” he added.
The match had a couple of sain stoppages, the first one at 10.15 pm with players sitting on court itself till play re-started after the first delay of 18 minutes. Dzhumur won the first set 6-3 and then at 10.50 pm the drizzle started again stopping play yet again for a further ten minutes.
“It’s tough to cope with such rain delays as the body cools down and it takes time to get back into the match,” Dzumhur said.
“He started playing well and he saved at least eight match points. But finally I did enough to see myself over the line,” he added.
Result: Damir Dzumhur bt Yannick Maden 6-3, 6-4
Wednesday order of play
Centre Court (Start at 2pm) Roberto Bautista Agut vs Pierre-Hughes Herbert; (Not before 4pm) Karen Khachanov vs Lucas Pouille; (Not before 7pm) Filip Krajinovic vs Marcos Baghdatis; Malek Jaziri vs Robin Haase.
Court 1 (Start at 2pm) Benoit Paire vs Borna Coric; Yuichi Sugita vs Jan-Lennard Struff; Evgeny Donskoy vs Damir Dzumhur; Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Philipp Kohlschreiber.
Court 3 (Start at 2pm) Marcus Daniell/Dominic Inglot vs Jean-Julien Rojer/Horia Tecau; Raven Klaasen/Michael Venus v Rohan Bopanna/Edouard Roger-Vasselin; Karen Khachanov/Benoit Paire vs Jamie Cerretani/Leander Paes; Divij Sharan/Yuichi Sugita vs Marcin Matkowski/Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi.
