Eva Lys immediately apologises to rival after getting first win in 3 months

Eva Lys apologises to best friend Paula Badosa after stunning Stuttgart comeback.

The match looked done and Paula Badosa seemed to be cruising toward a comfortable first-round victory at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart on Tuesday.

She had taken the first set comfortably and raced to 4-1 in the second with her serve to come. Then Eva Lys decided she was not finished.

The 24-year-old German produced one of the most remarkable recoveries of the early clay season, coming back from a set and two breaks down to beat Badosa 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.

When the final point was played Lys walked straight to the net and delivered four words to her opponent.

"I'm so sorry Paula," she said.

The apology spoke to something beyond the tennis. Lys and Badosa are close friends off the court and the German was visibly conflicted about what she had just done to someone she genuinely cares about.

"I'm gonna be honest, she's such an amazing player on and off the court. Also an amazing friend," Lys said afterwards.

"It wasn't easy for both of us to play. I definitely wanna give her my whole respect. It was a really tough match."

Lys was candid about just how difficult Badosa is to handle when she is striking the ball cleanly.

"She started so well in the first one. I don't know if you guys see how fast Paula is hitting. When Paula has the ball in her frame it's sometimes impossible to hit it back. I was just trying to keep up," she said.

The first set gave little indication of what was to come, with Lys broken twice and the opening set going Badosa's way without any real resistance.

Badosa then broke in the opening game of the second and extended her lead to 4-1 with her big groundstrokes dictating every exchange. The Porsche Arena had effectively written the result.

Lys held a different view and won the next four games in a row to flip the second set before breaking Badosa in the final game to claim it 7-5. The third set followed a similar pattern with both players trading breaks before Lys broke decisively in the tenth game to complete the comeback after two hours and 15 minutes.

"Having the spectators in the almost full Porsche Arena believing in me meant a great deal," Lys said.

"In the second and third set I felt like I had good timing. I was so glad to be sharing the court with her. It was an amazing match."

The result is a painful one for Badosa who had been using Stuttgart as a platform to push back into the top 100.

The former world number two entered the tournament ranked 106th on a wild card and fifteen double faults over the course of the match ultimately proved too costly a burden to carry.

For Lys the win carries its own significance as it was her first victory since the opening week of the season after a knee injury kept her away from the tour for two months.

She had been just 1-4 for the year heading into Stuttgart but drew enormous energy from the home crowd inside the Porsche Arena. She now moves into the round of 16 where she will face fourth seed Elina Svitolina.