The Swiss Open in Gstaad is running out of Swiss players. Stan Wawrinka (ATP 105), Dominic Stricker (ATP 175) and Marc-Andrea Hüsler (ATP 226) all fail in the starting round. Leandro Riedi is therefore the last local player in the tournament.
Wawrinka lost to Slovakia's Lukas Klein (ATP 118) 6:7 (4:7), 6:2, 5:7, Stricker to the Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp (ATP 87) 3:6, 3:6. Hüsler, whose match against the Serb Hamad Medjedovic (ATP 122) had already begun on Monday evening, lost 3:6 in the third set after two tiebreaks. Leandro Riedi is therefore the only Swiss player left in the table after the first round. The Zurich native had beaten Frenchman Grégoire Barrère in two sets on Monday and will now face the German number 5 seed Jan-Lennard Struff (ATP 37) in the round of 16.
Wawrinka only lost the match against Klein shortly before the final tie-break. Prior to that, he had recovered from losing the first set and, with one exception, had safely won his service games. In his sixth match following his comeback after a six-month injury break, Stricker played well for long stretches, but allowed his service to be taken away in the decisive phases. He did not even manage a break against the former world number 22, who emerged from his creative crisis last week by reaching the final of a Challenger tournament in Braunschweig.
Hüsler thwarted by thunderstorm
The 28-year-old Hüsler was not helped at all by the thunderstorm on Monday evening, which postponed his opening match until Tuesday, but last year's semi-finalist Medjedovic was helped all the more. In the continuation on Tuesday, Medjedovic won sets 2 and 3 7:6 (7:2) and 6:3 in 95 minutes. The 20-year-old asserted himself against Hüsler for the second time in a week.
"His game was very laborious over three sets. I won the close points in the first, he did in the second. At the beginning of the third set, he had a phase in which he won every point. Unfortunately, it was no longer possible to come back after that," Hüsler summed up after his sixth first-round defeat at the Swiss Open at the seventh attempt. Playing in Gstaad is always nice, Hüsler continued. "Unfortunately, I've been waiting years for a good result in the singles. I don't know exactly why."
SDA
