Thomaz Bellucci attempted to beat Victor Estrella Burgos at the Ecuador Open in each of its first three editions (2015 SF, 2016 F, 2017 SF), but the Brazilian failed each time. Estrella Burgos would go on to win the Quito trophy all three years.

But after winning the first set against the Dominican on Monday evening and losing just three points through his first four service games in the second set, would the fourth time be the charm for Bellucci?

Not so fast. The three-time defending champion Estrella Burgos battled back to beat the Brazilian for the fourth time in Quito in four years 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in one hour, 55 minutes to deny Bellucci his 200th tour-level victory.

It was the Dominican’s first tour-level win this season after only claiming a combined five games in Doha (l. to Gasquet) and Melbourne Park (l. to Nadal). World No. 86 Estrella Burgos is the only player in history to win three titles at one event and not own a tour-level trophy anywhere else.

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While Bellucci could not hit his milestone, #NextGenATP Frenchman Corentin Moutet did. The 18-year-old bounced back after failing to serve out the match at 6-4, 5-4 to defeat Adrian Menendez-Maceiras 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2 to claim his first ATP World Tour match win.

“I’m really happy. It was a really good match,” Moutet said. “I’m really happy to win, but I’m really happy because I played a good match and I had a tough opponent who was playing really good.”

Moutet was the second-youngest player to finish inside the Top 200 of the year-end ATP Rankings in 2017. So was it a dream-come-true to earn his first tour-level victory in just his second ATP World Tour event?

“I can’t say it’s a dream because it’s been a goal,” Moutet said. “I practised hard for that.”

Another #NextGenATP star, Norwegian Casper Ruud, also advanced to the second round with a 7-5, 6-0 win against Argentine Carlos Berlocq.

Fifth seed Horacio Zeballos opens play on Centre Court Tuesday against Brazilian Thiago Monteiro, while Frenchman Gael Monfils and compatriot Dorian Descloix take on top seeds Marcelo Demoliner and Purav Raja in doubles later in the day.

Daniil Medvedev, who qualified for the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan last year, did not get off to the best start in 2018. The Russian began his season at an ATP Challenger Tour event in Playford, Australia, where he lost in the first round against World No. 379 Marinko Matosevic.

“It was very disappointing to start the year like this, because I went to the Challenger event to get some matches,” Medvedev told ATPWorldTour.com. “We knew it happens in tennis. The guy played a very good match. There will always be losses. So I just knew I had to be ready for the next one.”

The 21-year-old was more than ready, as he cruised through qualifying before winning his maiden ATP World Tour title at the Sydney International. The championship match against 18-year-old Alex de Minaur was the youngest final since Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic at the 2007 BNP Paribas Open.

But Medvedev almost did not play the event at all. The right-hander was the first alternate at the ASB Classic in Auckland, where the lowest-ranked entrant in the main draw, Guido Pella, was just one spot ahead of him in the ATP Rankings. Medvedev preferred to compete in Auckland since his girlfriend had a visa to meet him in New Zealand.

But Medvedev’s coach — Gilles Cervara — told his charge on Friday right before Sydney qualifying that he should be ready to go while the 21-year-old still held out hope of gaining entry into the other tournament.

“Come on Daniil, nobody will withdraw from Auckland. We have to be ready to play here and I know you’re going to play well here because you’re going to pass the qualies and make a good tournament,” Medvedev remembers his coach telling him.

“So at the end of the tournament I told him, ‘I told you I would play good here, you didn’t believe me’!”

But while Medvedev was excited about claiming his first tour-level trophy, the reality is that those feelings do not last forever and in this case, they did not even last a week.

“It’s very tough because the first feeling is you’re very happy for a few days, you still have the happiness inside of you,” Medvedev said. “But then it’s finished because you have the next tournament, the Australian Open. [You] kind of forget about it and as soon as you lose your next match you’re already sad about it. So it’s not really in my mind, I just try to play match by match.”

Medvedev lost five days later in the second round at Melbourne Park against eventual semi-finalist Hyeon Chung.

But he has still come a long way. One of the three under-22 Russians with an ATP World Tour title (Rublev, Khachanov), Medvedev says that at 10 years old, he never imagined being a professional tennis player inside the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings.

“I thought tennis was more like a hobby for me,” Medvedev recalled. “To be in the Australian Open juniors [in 2013] for me was already a great achievement that I admired at this moment. But I just continued working because since I’ve been 16 [when] I completely committed myself to being a professional tennis player.”

And it has certainly worked out thus far. Medvedev advanced to his first ATP World Tour final last year in Chennai and soared into the Top 50 of the ATP Rankings for the first time in July. He has made the quarter-finals or better at ATP World Tour events 10 times already. But with that being said, Medvedev wants to keep improving.

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“I’m very happy with it,” Medvedev said, “But at the same time I see other guys my age stronger than me at this moment making some better results, so I just want to improve day by day and get better in the rankings.”

The World No. 56, who says he is happy to have more flexibility with his scheduling thanks to the Sydney title, faces a stiff challenge to begin his campaign this week in Montpellier, where he faces three-time event winner Richard Gasquet in the first round.

Has the title changed his mindset entering this tournament?

“Not at all,” Medvedev said. “Some people sometimes try to remind you about this and it’s funny, but here I know that I play Gasquet, who has been in the final five times here, three times the champion. So I know that to win I will need to be at my best.

“Winning Sydney does not help me a lot in this match.”

Andrey Rublev had a tremendous 2017 season, soaring from No. 156 to No. 39 in the ATP Rankings, claiming his maiden title in Umag and finishing runner-up at the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

And after the 20-year-old Russian advanced to the Qatar ExxonMobil Open final to open his 2018 ATP World Tour season, he still has not slowed. Rublev defeated 34-year-old Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 6-4 in 75 minutes to move into the second round at the Open Sud de France in Montpellier on Monday.

In the pair’s first FedEx ATP Head2Head encounter, Rublev won all but six of his first-serve points (29/35) and broke three times to claim victory. He can possibly face fellow #NextGenATP contender Stefanos Tsitsipas in the second round should the 19-year-old Greek battle past home favourite Jeremy Chardy.

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Another Frenchman, Benoit Paire, thrilled the home crowd by ousting defending doubles champion Mischa Zverev (w/ Alexander Zverev) by the same score, 6-4, 6-4. It was a reversal of the duo’s meeting at the 2017 US Open, when the German came out on top in a five-set thriller.

Paire will next face the winner of No. 8 seed Yuichi Sugita and Australian John Millman.

Three Frenchmen lead Tuesday’s slate on Court Patrice Dominguez with Chardy, wild card Julien Benneteau and recent Tata Open Maharashtra champion Gilles Simon featuring in the day’s first three matches, with seventh seed David Ferrer facing inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals qualifier Karen Khachanov in a popcorn match to close out play on the tournament’s centre court.

In 2017, Lukas Lacko did not win a main draw tour-level match after the Australian Open until the Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open in July. This year, the Slovakian wasted no time, upsetting eighth seed Evgeny Donskoy 6-4, 6-4 at the Diema Xtra Sofia Open on Monday.

Lacko extended his FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead against the Russian to 2-0, with their previous meeting coming at the 2014 Shenzhen Open. The Slovakian broke twice in the match, and did not face break point himself to advance to the second round, where he will face either Moldovan Radu Albot or qualifier Jozef Kovalik.

In the only other main draw match of the day, seventh seed Joao Sousa withstood a tough test from home favourite Dimitar Kuzmanov, the World No. 340, to move on by a 7-6(6), 6-1 margin.

The Bulgarian saved two set points on Sousa’s serve at 4-5 in the opening set before earning three of his own in the ensuing tie-break at 6/3, but the World No. 68 showed his class to overcome the wild card and set up a second-round battle against German Maximilian Marterer or Tunisian Malek Jaziri.

The highest seed in action on Tuesday will be No. 6 Viktor Troicki, who takes on former World No. 10 Ernests Gulbis in the second match of the evening session.

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Quito is called “The City in the Sky” for good reason: The Ecuadorian capital sits in (and often above) the clouds at 9,350 feet (2,800 meters) above sea level. A panorama of the mountainous region that’s carved into the rugged Andes is breathtaking. The thin, high-altitude air can be breathtaking as well. 

Cerro Puntas, a protected wetland area in Quito, is home to the Paluguillo Drinking Water Treatment Plant of EPMAPS Agua de Quito, a sponsor of this week’s Ecuador Open. Because of environmental pollution and contamination of the region’s water supply, Cerro Puntas is vital when it comes to producing water that is pure enough for human consumption.

Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic and Brazil’s Rogerio Dutra Silva, both entrants in this week’s ATP World Tour 250 event in Quito, visited the over 2,000-acre water treatment center and got an inside look at the importance the plant plays within the region. Karlovic was especially impressed by the facility and the role it plays not just in the lives of the Ecuadorian people, but also to the area’s wildlife.

“This has been an awesome experience,” Karlovic, the tournament’s seventh seed said. “We’re in a high, remote region, but you stay a while and you realise how clean the water is, how well it’s been treated for consumption and how low risk it is both to the people that live here, and to the animals that inhabit the area as well.”

Dutra Silva was equally as impressed: “I had no idea this plant even existed; it feels good to know that people are benefiting from the work that’s done here, and I’m grateful to have had the chance to visit the plant. Water, obviously, is essential to life itself. And specifically to us tennis players, quality water plays a role in meeting the demands that come with performing at the highest level on the court.”

Marisol Fraga, director of communications for EPMAPS Agua de Quito, was grateful to have the players visit the Cerro Puntas grounds.

“Just by being here, these players helped highlight the work done by the 1,800 employees at this treatment center on a daily basis,” Fraga said. “We want to send a message across the planet that it’s up to all of us to make this world a better place.”

No one ever said coming back from knee surgery would be easy, but Stan Wawrinka knows he’s moving in the right direction.

After shutting down what had been a successful 2017 season due to a knee injury, which would ultimately require surgery and months of rehabilitation, Wawrinka made his return to competition at the Australian Open, winning one round before succumbing to Tennys Sandgren in the second. With his feet back on the ground – both literally and figuratively – the Swiss heads to the DIEMA XTRA Sofia Open in search of his next step.

“I am feeling much better. Since the first day I came back from Australia I was working really hard physically and also for my tennis. I am feeling better and better and starting to come back to my top level. I am happy with all the improvement I am making and I am happy to be back on the [ATP World] Tour,” said Wawrinka, a 16-time tour-level titlist. 

“For me it was really important mentally, but as well for my knee to see that everything is going to right direction,” the Swiss star added. “I knew I wasn’t ready to play at a good level and physically I was still far away from [where] I want to be. But it was important to test the knee, to see how it is reacting and also mentally to be a little bit back on the tour.”

The 32-year-old’s second tournament of the season sees him make his tournament debut in Sofia as the top seed following the withdrawal of Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov. Yet despite his seeding, Wawrinka maintains low expectations and is following the one-match-at-a-time tennis truism. 

“I always come into tournament to play my best tennis. [Winning the title] is not the goal you are putting in your head before a tournament. It is to be ready for the first match,” said the World No. 15. “I didn’t play for six months and I had only one tournament in Australia. So I think it isn’t easy. I know what I can do, I know what my level can be when I am playing good tennis. But first of all I am really happy to be back on the tour and to come to Sofia for the first time.” 

Former champions of the DIEMA XTRA Sofia Open, currently in its third edition, include home-favourite Dimitrov, who played a role in Wawrinka’s attendance at the ATP World Tour 250 event this week.

“I have never been in Bulgaria. [It’s] my first time,” said Wawrinka. “That’s why I am really excited. I’ve heard really good things… especially [now that] there is a tournament. We talked last year a little bit with Grigor about this. So I am excited to see your country.”

Sightseeing might be one of Wawrinka’s off-court goals this week, but as for on the court – the goal remains a simple one.

“My main goal is to come back at my top level physically and tennis-wise,” said Wawrinka. “I know it was really tough to be out for six months. Big surgeries take time to come back. So that is my first goal. When I feel ready with everything than I will try to see what more I can achieve.”