Roberto Carballes Baena of Spain took down American fifth seed Maxime Cressy 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-1 in the Round of 32 at the Grand Prix Hassan II on Tuesday in Marrakech, Morocco.
Cressy served nine aces but committed a whopping 20 double faults to put himself in a bind. Carballes Baena also pushed him to break point 13 times, converting five.
Two more seeded players were shown the door. France’s Alexandre Muller defeated countryman and No. 6 seed Richard Gasquet 6-4, 6-4, and Italian qualifier Andrea Vavassori beat eighth seed Nicolas Jarry of Chile 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.
Pavel Kotov of Russia, Bulgarian qualifier Dimitar Kuzmanov, Australian Christopher O’Connell and Swedish qualifier Elias Ymer also won their matches.
U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship
No. 7 seed Marcos Giron of the U.S. narrowly missed out on a double bagel, taking a 6-0, 5-0 lead on Emilio Gomez of Ecuador before winning 6-0, 6-2 in first-round action in Houston.
Gomez saved four match points in the sixth game of the second set in order to stave off the shutout.
American fifth seed J.J. Wolf won 22 of his 26 first-serve points (84.6 percent) en route to beating Australia’s Jordan Thompson 6-3, 6-2. Chile’s Cristian Garin swept past Hugo Dellien of Bolivia 6-3, 6-0 in just more than 63 minutes, and German qualifier Yannick Hanfmann defeated Japanese qualifier Yosuke Watanuki 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.
American Jack Sock, the 2015 champion in Houston, fell 6-2, 6-4 to Czech qualifier Tomas Machac. Eighth-seeded Tomas Martin Etcheverry won an all-Argentine matchup against Juan Manuel Cerundolo, 6-3, 6-4.
Millennium Estoril Open
No. 8 seed Ben Shelton of the U.S. took down Frenchman Constant Lestienne 7-5, 7-5 in the first round in Estoril, Portugal.
Shelton had an 8-3 edge in aces and won 35 of 42 first-service points (83.3 percent).
Dominic Thiem of Austria rallied past countryman Sebastian Ofner 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Thiem is looking for his first title since collecting his lone grand slam trophy at the 2020 U.S. Open.
Serbian sixth seed Miomir Kecmanovic beat Italy’s Luca Nardi 6-4, 6-1. Other winners Tuesday included Frenchmen Quentin Halys and Luca Van Assche, Portuguese wild card Joao Sousa, Jurij Rodionov of Austria and Bernabe Zapata Miralles of Spain.
–Field Level Media
