The two top-seeded in the singles-qualifier satisfied their roles as favourites. Joao Sousa (Portugal) and Andreas Seppi (Italy) are thus only one win away from getting through to the main field at the NOVENTI OPEN. This also goes for the three Germans Mischa Zverev, Mats Moraing and Matthias Bachinger.
Joao Sousa struggled more than he liked it against Jannik Sinner (Italy) at first. After losing his first set he came back to defeat the young Italian 6:7(6), 6:3, 6:4. The Portuguese player will now meet Miomir Kecmanovic (Serbia), who won against Louis Wessels 6:4, 6:2.
Andreas Seppi, who reached the finals in Halle once in 2015, stayed in front against Brayden Schnur (Canada), winning 6:4, 7:5 and will now meet Mischa Zverev. The German had to take the whole distance of three sets against Lloyd Harris (South Africa) before winning 6:3, 5:7, 6:4.
A top performance was shown by Matthias Bachinger, who won in straight sets 6:4, 6:2 against the no. three seeded Lorenzo Sonego (Italy). His opponent in his qualifier-final is Sergiy Stakhovsky from the Ukraine, who defeated Ernests Gulbis (Lettland) 7:6(5), 6:2.
At the end of the first round of the qualifiers Mats Moraing surprised all. Although he left five match points at 6:3, 5:4 in the second set against the no. 4 positioned Andrey Rublev (Russia) and had to go into a thrid round. The seventh match point gave him the victory thought at 6:3, 5:7, 7:6(5). Mats Moraing will now meet last years semi-finalist Denis Kudla (USA), who won 4:6, 6:0, 6:4 against Thomas Fabbiano (Italy).
