Tallon Greek track reached the second round of the ATP tournament in Hamburg in a beautiful way on Tuesday. The Dutchman was too strong for Holger Rune on the German clay in two sets: 7-6 (8) and 7-5.
The 26-year-old Greek track is twenty places lower in the world ranking than the only 19-year-old Rune (47 at 27). The Danish talent already won the clay tournament in Munich at the expense of Botic van de Zandschulp this year and reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros.
In Hamburg, Rune had a hard time with Greek track. De Nieuw-Vennepper was broken at 2-3 and missed his first four break points in the match, but fought back to 4-4. In the final phase of the first set, Greek track lost three set points, after which he had the longest breath in the long tiebreak.
In the second set, in his service innings, Greek track no longer ran into problems and decided the game in his favor with a break at 6-5. Rune was number eight on the placement list.
In the second round, Greek track awaits a showdown with the Croat Borna Coric, who defeated the Serb Laslo Djere in three sets: 1-6, 7-6 (4) and 6-3. Van de Zandschulp also participated in Hamburg, but the Veenendaler was eliminated in the first round on Monday by Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Greek track already gained some confidence last week by winning the challenger in Amersfoort for the second year in a row. It was his first clay-court tournament since Roland Garros. At the end of last month, on the ‘holy grass’ of Wimbledon, Greek track was eliminated in the second round by Carlos Alcaraz.