Michelsen sees off Basavareddy for maiden Jeddah win

Alex Michelsen shook off any lingering doubts from last year's campaign to secure his maiden win at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF on Wednesday.

The second-seeded American overcame countryman Nishesh Basavareddy 2-4, 4-3(5), 4-3(4), 4-2 in a high-octane battle in Jeddah. After losing all three round-robin matches on his debut in 2023, Michelsen displayed resilience in a one-hour, 50-minute victory to move to 1-0 in Red Group.

“Considering I went 0-3 last year, winning this first one felt really good,” said Michelsen, the No. 41 in the PIF ATP Rankings. “It’s always a good feeling and I felt really relieved to get that one done.

“He definitely handled [his debut] better than I did last year. He was rushing me very quickly from the beginning, and I didn’t have answers. Then I found my way into a couple of breakers. I feel like I served pretty well today, so that always helps.”

The match appeared to be swinging in Basavaraddy’s favour at the end of the third set, helped by a missed routine volley from Michelsen. At 40/30, the 20-year-old attempted a drop volley instead of a put-away smash to gift the seventh seed a route back into the game. Yet the Michelsen recovered from letting slip four set points from 40/0 to drop serve by steadying to seal a dominant tie-break.

“That didn’t feel very good,” Michelsen said of his broken service game at 3-2 in the third set. “I left his chip on 40/15 that hit the line, then at 40/30 I somehow lost the point. But I was still thinking at deuce ‘Let’s make a first serve’, but that didn’t happen. He started hot in the breaker, but I did a really good job of resetting. I’m super happy with the way that I fought in the end.”

Basavareddy, the former Stanford standout who announced this month his decision to turn pro, will seek a first win at the innovative event on Thursday. The 19-year-old will face Shang Juncheng, who was defeated by sixth seed Luca Van Assche in Red Group’s opening match.