Defending champion Jannik Sinner lost his second-round match on grass at Halle on Thursday to Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik, the Italian’s first tournament since his French Open final defeat.<\/p>\n
The world number one fell 6-3, 3-6, 6-4<\/a> to the 45th-ranked Bublik<\/a> for the 23-year-old’s first defeat to a player ranked outside the top 20 since the summer of 2023.<\/p>\n A few days before his defeat to Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> in the title match at the French Open, Sinner<\/a> had easily dispatched Bublik in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros, dropping only six games.<\/p>\n On Thursday, ten days before Wimbledon, Bublik claimed his second victory in six ties against Sinner.<\/p>\n The Kazakh will play Tomas Machac<\/a> in the quarter-finals after the Czech beat Hungarian Fabian Marozsan<\/a> 6-2, 6-3<\/a> earlier in the day.<\/p>\n Earlier, world number three Alexander Zverev<\/a> rallied from a set down to see off Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego<\/a> and advance to the quarter-finals on grass in Halle.<\/p>\n The 28-year-old German won 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(7)<\/a> against the 46th-ranked Sonego and next plays another Italian, Flavio Cobolli<\/a> for a place in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n A finalist in Halle in 2016 and 2017, Zverev recorded his fifth victory in as many meetings with Sonego, a year after beating him at the same stage of the same competition.<\/p>\n Sonego took advantage of his only chance to break in the first set at 4-3. The German struggled throughout to break his opponent’s serve.<\/p>\n Zverev dug deep in the second set, leading 5-4, to win the set before dominating the tiebreak in the final set.<\/p>\n Argentina’s 63rd-ranked Tomas Martin Etcheverry<\/a> also reached the quarter-finals after a three-hour duel against fourth seed Andrey Rublev<\/a> 6-3, 6-7(4), 7-6(6)<\/a>.<\/p>\n