'About to lose', Mannarino rallies to Almaty win; Evans sets Tiafoe meeting

pEighth seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/adrian-mannarino/me82/overview'Adrian Mannarino/a dug deep Tuesday to keep his title defence hopes alive at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/almaty/9410/overview'Almaty Open/a./p

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roman-safiullin/sx50/overview'Roman Safiullin/a served for a straight-sets win at 7-5, 5-3, but the Frenchman Mannarino relied on his brickwall consistency to mount a comeback. After two hours and 45 minutes, the 36-year-old secured his place in the second round with a 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-3 victory.nbsp;In the second-set tie-break, Mannarino won all five of his return points./p

pMannarino earned a record-extending 11th match win at the Kazakhstani ATP 250, which was previously held in Astana./p

p

ldquo;Today was a tough match. I was down, I was about to lose the match actually,rdquo; said Mannarino, World No. 56 in the PIF ATP Rankings. ldquo;I donrsquo;t know mdash; a little bit of luck maybe and I came back. That was really close.rdquo;/p

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With his opening-round win, the five-time tour-level titlist improved to 3-0 against Safiullin in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series. Mannarino, who earned his 300th career match win last month in Beijing, will next meet an Australian: a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/james-duckworth/d994/overview'James Duckworth/a or a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/aleksandar-vukic/v832/overview'Aleksandar Vukic/a./p

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Other Tour-veterans who advanced Tuesday include a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/daniel-evans/e687/overview'Daniel Evans/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/aslan-karatsev/kc56/overview'Aslan Karatsev/a. Evans, 34, downed Japanrsquo;s a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/taro-daniel/da81/overview'Taro Daniel/a 6-2, 7-6(4) after fending off four of the five break points he faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats. The British qualifier will next clash against top seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/frances-tiafoe/td51/overview'Frances Tiafoe/a. Karatsev ousted Chinarsquo;s a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.atptour.com/en/players/zhizhen-zhang/z371/overview" target="_blank"Zhang Zhizhen/a 6-4, 7-6(2)./p

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Home favourites a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-shevchenko/s0h2/overview'Alexander Shevchenko/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/beibit-zhukayev/z09z/overview'Beibit Zhukayev/a advanced. The 23-year-old Shevchenko overcame countryman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/mikhail-kukushkin/k926/overview'Mikhail Kukushkin/a 7-6(5), 7-6(4) while Zhukayev downed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/benjamin-hassan/hg94/overview'Benjamin Hassan/a 6-4, 6-1./p

p

a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/otto-virtanen/v0am/overview'Otto Virtanen/a was a 6-3, 7-6(4) winner against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/fabio-fognini/f510/overview'Fabio Fognini/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/gabriel-diallo/d0f6/overview'Gabriel Diallo/a powered past a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.atptour.com/en/players/christopher-o'connell/o483/overview" target="_blank"Christopher Orsquo;Connell/a 7-6(5), 6-2./p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"

p lang="en" dir="ltr"Tiebreak Triumph ????br /

br /

Shevchenko closes the day with a 7-6(5) 7-6(4) win over Kukushkin!a href="https://twitter.com/ktf_kz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@ktf_kz/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AlmatyOpen?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#AlmatyOpen/a a href="https://t.co/9yNIxTQpFp"pic.twitter.com/9yNIxTQpFp/a/p

mdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1846227794763960761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"October 15, 2024/a/blockquote

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