Bautista Agut Wins Epic In Sofia

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.

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.