On Friday, perseverance paid off for Alexander Blockx in the Cincinnati Open, where he recorded his first ATP Tour victory after five earlier attempts.
The 20-year-old Belgian delivered a Gutsy Baseline display to survive home favorite Marcos Giron 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in the first round at the renewed Hard-Court ATP Masters 1000 event. Blockx, who won the title of the Boys’ Singles on the Australian Open 2023, is currently fifth in the PIF ATP Live race to Jeddah and in strong position to debut on the 20-end Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF in December.
A striking star in the juniors, Blockx rose to number 1 during the year he triumphed in Melbourne. In the same year, he qualified for his first ATP Tour head drawing on a home floor in Antwerp. Since then he has lifted two ATP Challenger Tour trophies and with his first victory at tour level he climbs to a career-high no. 113 in the PIF ATP Live ranking.
Blockx hit 32 winners and converted four of the seven breaking points against Giron, according to Infosys ATP statistics. The next in Cincinnati is a second round meeting with another American, 27th Seed Brandon Nakashima.
Camilo Ugo Carabelli continued his striking 2025 season by aiming four-time ATP Masters 1000 finalist Kei Nishikori 7-5, 6-3. The 26-year-old Argentin, who is on a career-high no. 47 in the PIF ATP ranking, will then be confronted with a strict test against Toronto Champion and World No. 6 Ben Shelton in the second round.
While 18 Van Ugo Carabelli’s 21 victories came to clay on clay, he reached the third round at the Hard-Court ATP Masters 1000 in Miami in March-its Best run at that level he fell to Novak Djokovic. For the first time, Nishikori returned to action at Tour level in Cincinnati since he withdrew from his second round in Geneva in May due to low back pain.
In other action in the bottom half of the Cincinnati trek, Tristan Boyer got the prevention in a fight between two American wildcards and won 6-3, 7-6 (3) against Brandon Holt. The 24-year-old next is confronted with 22nd seed Jiri Lehecka.
Lucky Loser Luca Nardi defeated Thiago Agustin Tirante 6-4, 7-6 (5) to determine a second round meeting with Denis Shapovalov.
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