By Chris Oddo | Tuesday February 13, 2018
21-year-old Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands stunned Stan Wawrinka and earned his first career win, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, on Tuesday night at the ABN Amro World Tennis Championships in Rotterdam.
By the Numbers: Seeds Dominate Day 2 in Doha
The wild card, playing in his third career ATP match, said he knew that Wawrinka was not at the top of his form, and he did what he could to put the Wawrinka on defense as much as he could.
“I felt there was something, he was a little bit struggling with the knee, I knew I had to use the forehand corner,” said Griekspoor. “I went for it, and I think the break in the first game of the second set helped me a lot.”
Griekspoor engineered three breaks in total, including two in the decider that saw him win 13 of 15 first-serve points.
Wawrinka, who is recovering from two surgeries to his left knee last summer, drops to 3-3 on the season.
“It’s unbelievable, especially a night match,” said Griekspoor. “For my home crowd here, my first ATP win against such a big champion—it’s unbelievable.”
Griekspoor moves on to face either Robin Haase of Thiemo De Bakker in the second round. If he wins that he could potentially face Roger Federer in the quarterfinals.
Auger-Aliassime Falls on ATP Debut
17-year-old Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime dropped his ATP debut, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, to Filip Krajinovic of Serbia. The former U.S. Open junior champion acquitted himself nicely, but fell at the last hurdle and was broken while serving to force a third-set tiebreaker.
In other action on a busy Tuesday at Rotterdam, No.4-seeded David Goffin defeated Nicolas Mahut, 6-1, 6-3, while No.9-seeded Gilles Muller was upset by Daniil Medvedev, 6-4, 7-6(9). Viktor Troicki (d. Struff) and Philipp Kohlschreiber (d. Khachanov) were also winners.