Estonia’s top three tennis players were all on winning form Tuesday, though it took some longer than others to make it through their matches.
Estonia’s top-ranked men’s player Mark Lajal (ATP 153rd) took his first main-draw victory at the ATP Challenger 100 tournament in Oeiras, Portugal. After coming through the qualifying rounds, Lajal faced Spaniard Daniel Merida Aguilar, the tournament’s sixth seed and ranked 11 spots above him by the ATP, in round one.
Lajal broke his opponent’s serve twice in both sets, taking both 6:2, 6:2. He hit five aces, won 96 percent of points on his first serve, and produced 12 winners, in the 54 minute-long match.
Mark Lajal. Source: ATP Challenger Tour/Instagram
In round two he will face Mihhail Kukuškin (ATP 262), either Gastao Elias (ATP 370) and
Daniil Glinka (ATP No. 200) is also through to the second round of the Oeiras tournament, but had to work much harder against Belgium’s Gauthier Onclin (ATP No. 269), to progress.
In set one, after going 5:4 up Glinka failed to win another game as Onclin broke his serve twice to take it 7:5.
In the second set things were similarly close: With things at 4:3 in the Estonian’s favor, the pair traded no fewer than five consecutive games in which they broke each other’s service, sending things to a tie-break situation.
This continued in a similar form: Glinka was 4:1 down only to claw his way back to an 8:6 win, taking things to a deciding third set.
In that decider, Glinka took a 3:1 lead with the help of a break, yet then again allowed his opponent to break back twice and found himself trailing 4:3. He was able to even the score in the eighth game, however, and broke his opponent’s serve again in the tenth game to seal a 6:4 victory.
The entire match lasted a whopping three hours and 10 minutes.
Glinka will face the eighth seed, Colombian Nicolas Mejia (ATP No. 168th) in round two.
Elsewhere, Estonia’s women’s top-ranked player Elena Malõgina (WTA 430th) too got off to a winning start at the W75-level ITF tennis tournament in Leszno, Poland, by beating tournament seventh seed Susan Bandecchi (Switzerland, ranked 248th in the world), 6:0, 6:7 (5:7), 6:2.
Elena Malõgina. Source: Priit Mürk/ERR
In the first set, Malõgina was very solid. On her own serve, she conceded a total of just two points to her opponent. In set two, the Estonian again took the lead thanks to a break, but the match soon evened out, and while Malõgina held three match points at 5:4, she squandered them as Bandecchi managed to force a tiebreak, going on to win it and the second set.
In the decider, Malõgina was more decisive, winning the first two games to love, and while Bandecchi got one break opportunity with things at 3:1 in Malõgina’s favor, she failed to convert it. Malõgina did not give her any further chances after that.
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