Rotterdam (Netherlands) (AFP)
Gaël Monfils escaped the slaughter: Thursday at the Rotterdam tournament, the French tennis N.1 beat his compatriot Gilles Simon 6-4, 6-1 and qualified for the quarterfinals, unlike the heads of David Goffin and Stefanos Tsitsipas series.
Four days after his title in Montpellier, the ninth world player did not tremble for this 100% French reunion, almost three years after the last confrontation between the two players, which ended with a demonstration by Gilles Simon (6 -0, 6-0, 7-6), today ranked 57th.
Holding the title in the Netherlands, Monfils will face the Briton Daniel Evans (N.33) for a place in the semi-finals.
Earlier in the day, Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and Belgian David Goffin, 6th and 10th world and seeded N.2 and N.4 in Rotterdam, were eliminated in the second round of the Dutch tournament, bringing to five out of eight the number of seeds already eliminated.
Tsitsipas was beaten in two sets 7-5, 6-4 by Aljaz Bedene, a 52nd-ranked Slovenian who, at 30, still has no title on his track record, where he has already played four finals .
The Italian Jannik Sinner, 79th in the world, one of the new phenomena of the circuit at 18 years old, got the better of Goffin in two very disputed sets, 7-6 (9/7), 7-5.
After the eliminations from the 1st round of the Russian Daniil Medvedev (seeded N.1), the Italian Fabio Fognini (N.5) and the Canadian Denis Shapovalov (N.8), there are only three heads left series still racing in Rotterdam: Monfils, Spaniard Roberto Bautista (N.6) and Russian Andrey Rublev (N.7), already qualified for the quarters.
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