Denis Shapovalov started his 2023 Halle Open campaign with a comfortable two-set win over Lloyd Harris.
It's been far from the ideal start of the season for the Canadian who won only nine of his first 20 matches in 2023. The 24-year-old has also been troubled by some injuries as he was forced to withdraw from the Italian Open earlier during a clay-court season.
In Paris, Shapovalov had only one goal, and that was being pain-free, and after a third-round exit, he shifted his focus to the grass-court part of the season. But his first match on the green surface also wasn't good as he lost in the first round of the 2023 Stuttgart Open to Marton Fucsovics.
But in Halle, the Canadian took on Lloyd Harris, who is still trying to find his top form after struggling with injuries for the majority of the season. The two met previously three times on the ATP Tour, and even though the South African won all of the matches, he wasn't the favourite this time around.
Both players are known for their big serves and that was the main storyline of the match. After Harris had one break point, which he couldn't use, in the opening game of the match, the opening set reached a tie-break.
Shapovalov knew that the first set may be decided in a tie-break and prepared well for it. He was 100% on his serve and got three mini-breaks on four of his opponent's serves, comfortably winning the tie-break 7-1.
There were many more break points in the second set of the match, and this time, both players had a chance to break. But it wasn't until the ninth game when fans in Halle saw one player go up a break, and it was the Canadian.
After breaking his opponent's serve in one of the longest games of the match, Shapovalov served out the match to love, winning 7-6(1), 6-4 to advance to the second round of the tournament.
Up next, he'll meet either Dominic Thiem or the ninth-seeded Alexander Zverev, who was promoted to the spot after the withdrawal of the eighth-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime.
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