Bautista Agut Wins Epic In Sofia, Draper Sets Musetti Clash

Roberto Bautista Agut won a three-hour, 16-minute epic on Tuesday to reach the second round at the Sofia Open.

The Spaniard triumphed at the ATP 250 hard-court event in 2016 and made a winning start to his campaign against Miomir Kecmanovic, clawing past the Serbian 7-6(9), 6-7(2), 7-6(5).

Bautista Agut failed to serve out the match at 5-4 in the second set and at 5-4 in the third set, but eventually prevailed in the third-set tie-break, converting his second match point to improve to 5-0 in the pair's Lexus ATP Head2Head series. Bautista Agut will next play Hungarian Fabian Marozsan.

Marozsan, who upset Carlos Alcaraz in Rome this year, overcame countryman Zsombor Piros 6-3, 6-1 to reach his fifth tour-level second round of the year.

Jack Draper won his fifth ATP Challenger Tour title last week in Italy and backed that up with a 6-3, 6-2 win against Maximilian Marterer. The British lefty, who advanced to the fourth round at the US Open this year, will meet top seed Lorenzo Musetti in the second round.

In other action, Australian Christopher O’Connell defeated #NextGenATP Serbian Hamad Medjedovic 6-7(3), 6-1, 7-6(2) to improve to 2-0 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series. O’Connell will next play Sebastian Ofner after the Austrian beat Ukrainian qualifier Vitaliy Sachko 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.

Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas beat countryman Roberto Carballes Baena 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in two hours and 49 minutes to earn his first tour-level hard-court win since Basel in 2022. He will next face second seed Adrian Mannarino. Australian Max Purcell also advanced, downing Rinky Hijikata 6-3, 6-3.

British qualifier Billy Harris earned victory on his tour-level debut, defeating Marc-Andrea Huesler 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(5), while Pavel Kotov overcame Alexandar Lazarov 3-6, 6-1, 6-2. Jurij Rodionov downed Nicolas Moreno De Alboran 7-6(4), 6-7(4), 6-4 and Cem Ilkel beat Dimitar Kuzmanov 6-0, 6-3. Marton Fucsovics moved past Terence Atmane 7-6(4), 6-3.