Luca Van Assche emerged victorious from the Franco-French duel which pitted him against Alexandre Muller on Monday in the first round of the Hamburg ATP 500 tournament played on clay 7-6 (7/3), 6-4.
A victory acquired with a lot of character in Germany. Van Assche first pushed his compatriot to the tie-break in the first set (won 7/3) before catching up with a delay of two breaks in the second set. Led 4-1, he was able to reverse the trend and line up five consecutive games to win.
At only 19 years old, Luca Van Assche, 77th player in the world, continues his progress at the highest level and confirms his appetite for clay. He already has two titles on this surface on the Challenger circuit and has reached the first round of Roland-Garros this year. In the second round, the young Frenchman will be opposed to Pedro Cachin, titled Sunday at the ATP 250 in Gstaad, or Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, his executioner during the Parisian Major last May.
