Players from the Balkans ruled Tuesday at the VTB Kremlin Cup in Moscow.

Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina continued the best stretch of his career with a 6-3, 0-6, 6-2 win against Italian Thomas Fabbiano. The Sarajevo native went 18-3 from 31 July to 29 September, a stretch that included a number of milestones for the 25-year-old right-hander.

Dzumhur reached his first ATP World Tour final at the Winston-Salem Open. He won his maiden title at the St. Petersburg Open. And in late September, he gained his second Top 10 win of the season, knocking off then-World No. 4 Alexander Zverev in the Shenzhen Open quarter-finals. Dzumhur, No. 38 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, will next meet Indian qualifier Yuki Bhambri.

Serbian Filip Krajinovic upset home favourite and fifth seed Andrey Rublev in a tight opener, 7-5, 7-6(6). Rublev, who joined Zverev on Monday as qualifiers for the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals, led the second-set tie-break 5/2 but was unable to put away the 25-year-old qualifier, who picked up his first tour-level win of the year.

Krajinovic, No. 77, is 47-15 on the ATP Challenger Tour with five titles this season. He will next play Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis, who beat Krajinovic’s countryman Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 7-6(2).

Lajovic’s countryman Laslo Djere played big under pressure to pull off an upset and move into the second round of the ATP World Tour 250. Djere saved a match point at 5/6 in the second-set tie-break to beat seventh seed Paolo Lorenzi of Italy 4-6, 7-6(9), 6-4 in two hours and 49 minutes. Djere will next face Bosnian qualifier Mirza Basic or Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia.

Portugal’s Joao Sousa recorded a historic milestone four years ago in Kuala Lumpur, when he became the first player from his country to win an ATP World Tour title. The 28 year old explains the importance of that moment and also shares various ‘firsts’ in this exclusive Q&A with ATPWorldTour.com.

First moment I realised I love tennis
That’s a tough one. Probably when I decided to go to Barcelona when I was 15. I realised that I really wanted to be a professional tennis player, that was my big dream, so I think it was that moment. 

First coach and most important lesson he taught me
First coach was in my birth city, in Guimaraes, his name was Luis Coutinho. What I learned from him is to be humble and to work as much as I can to try to reach my goals.

First pinch-me moment on the ATP World Tour
My first title. Absolutely. Not only for me, but for my country it was a great moment in my career. Of course it will always be in my mind the moment that I won. 

First time I was recognised
I think after winning my first title. After that people started to know me very well. On the street, they would say, ‘Oh that’s Sousa there.’ 

First time I travelled abroad
Probably I was 11. I think I went to France. That was my first trip. I was very young and I have a very bad memory, but I remember it was a great experience. Everything was new.  

First thing I bought with prize money
I don’t buy a lot of things for myself, I buy for another person. I bought a watch for my mother. That was the biggest I’ve given to a person. 

First autograph I gave
I was pretty young actually, about 10 years old. I did a newspaper interview. The girl asked me for an autograph, and said maybe one day he’s going to be very important. 

First idol
Juan Carlos Ferrero was my idol when I was growing up and playing tennis. 

First pet
Momo, my Labrador. It’s always good when I come back home and play with him.

Rafael Nadal has been forced to withdraw from next week’s Swiss Indoors Basel with knee soreness. The World No. 1 had reached back-to-back hard-court finals at the China Open (d. Kyrgios) and the Shanghai Rolex Masters (l. Federer) as part of a 16-match winning streak dating back to his 16^th Grand Slam title at the US Open.

The ATP World Tour 500 tournament released a statement Tuesday confirming the withdrawal: “After seeing his team doctor in Barcelona, the World No. 1 sadly had to pull out of the Swiss Indoors Basel. According to his doctors the Spaniard suffers from overstressing of the knee. The problems were already present at the tournament in Shanghai… His spot as top seed in Basel will now be taken by Roger Federer, the other dominant player of the 2017 tennis season.”

Nadal remains a strong favourite to finish year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings for the fourth time in his career. However, should Federer win Basel for the eighth time, he will earn 500 points and cut Nadal’s current lead to 1,460 points ahead of the Rolex Paris Masters, where 1000 points await the winner.

The final event Nadal and Federer will play this season is the Nitto ATP Finals at The O2 arena in London, from 12-19 November. The world’s biggest indoor tennis tournament offers 1,500 points to an undefeated champion.

The Swiss Indoors Basel still boasts an impressive player field including Federer, Marin Cilic, Juan Martin del Potro, David Goffin, Nick Kyrgios and Roberto Bautista Agut.

Three seeds — No. 6 Fabio Fognini, No. 7 Yuichi Sugita and No. 8 Fernando Verdasco — all got off to winning starts on Tuesday at the Intrum Stockholm Open.

Italian Fognini, who picked up the Gstaad crown (d. Hanfmann) in July, opened his bid for a sixth ATP World Tour title by beating Malek Jaziri of Tunisia 7-5, 6-1 in 73 minutes. He now faces Argentine Leonardo Mayer or wild card Elias Ymer of Sweden.

Japan’s Sugita lived to fight another day, withstanding 15 aces in a dramatic 1-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) victory over Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan over one hour and 56 minutes. Istomin won the first five games of the pair’s third FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting, then recovered from 3-5 in the third set before squandering a 4/2 advantage in the tie-break. Sugita goes onto meet Slovakian Norbert Gombos or 2009 titlist Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus.

Spaniard Verdasco, runner-up at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships (l. to Murray) in February, lost just one of his first service points (27/28) to record his fourth straight win in eight meetings (5-3) against Robin Haase 6-3, 6-1 in 47 minutes. He awaits the winner of Slovakian qualifier Lukas Lacko and lucky loser Jurgen Zopp of Estonia.

Elsewhere, France’s Jeremy Chardy set up a second-round encounter against third-seeded American Jack Sock after he hit 12 aces — and lost six of his first service points (27/33) — to beat Alessandro Giannessi of Italy in 72 minutes. He also beat Giannessi a few weeks ago at the Shenzhen Open 7-6(6), 6-4 in the first round.

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