The two 37-year-old French veterans Richard Gasquet (126th) and Gaël Monfils (68th) won their respective duels against the Kazakh Alexander Shevchenko (45th) and the Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp (70th) in the first round of the ATP 250 tournament in Doha , Tuesday.
Having recently fallen beyond 100th place in the world (126th), Gasquet created a small surprise by beating the Kazakh Alexander Shevchenko, 23 years old and 45th in the world, in two sets 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour 30 minutes.
The Bitterois, who benefits from an invitation to this tournament, won the first set with authority, concluded with a magnificent backhand down the line, in 39 minutes.
On his momentum, Gasquet, finalist last week in the Challenger tournament in Manama and very sharp, quickly made the break at the start of the second round.
After obtaining a first match point at 5-3 on Shevchenko’s serve, he won by exploiting the second in the next game.
After this success, his first of the year on the main circuit, Gasquet, winner of the tournament in 2013, will have a much more formidable opponent in the second round: the Russian Andrey Rublev, seeded N.1 and 5th in the world.
In the evening, Monfils, also invited for the Qatari tournament, also won in two sets, 6-1, 7-6 (11/9) in 1h42 against van de Zandschulp.
The Frenchman quickly completed the first set before having to save several set points in the second set, including three when he was trailing 5-6, 0-40 on his serve.
He went for the tie-break and saw his Dutch opponent come out of his match, taking a penalty point for bad behavior. “La Monf” concluded his match point with the help of the net and will play the Chinese Zhang Zhizhen (48th) in the next round.
The other Frenchman entered on Tuesday, Hugo Grenier (151st), beat the German Maximilian Marterer (99th) 7-6 (7/5), 7-5.
