Hurkacz wins tough Tokyo opener

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hubert-hurkacz/hb71/overview'Hubert Hurkacz/a earned an important win in his quest to qualify for the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a on Wednesday at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/tokyo/329/overview'Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championships/a, where he clawed past American a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/marcos-giron/gc88/overview'Marcos Giron/a 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-4 to reach the second round in Tokyo./p

pThe Pole arrives at the ATP 500 hard-court event 13th in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, needing strong runs during the Asian swing to boost his faint a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a hopes./p

pCompeting in Asia for the first time since winning his second ATP Masters 1000 title in Shanghai last year, the 27-year-old recovered from squandering a break advantage in the second set against Giron to advance in a tight decider after two hours and eight minutes./p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Victory No. 40 of the season ✅a href="https://twitter.com/HubertHurkacz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@HubertHurkacz/a kicks off his Tokyo run, fighting past Giron 6-4 6-7(5) 6-4!a href="https://twitter.com/japanopentennis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@japanopentennis/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/kinoshitajotennis?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#kinoshitajotennis/a a href="https://t.co/3SKgAYFIg8"pic.twitter.com/3SKgAYFIg8/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1838869892377809332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"September 25, 2024/a/blockquote script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

pHurkacz now trails eighth-placed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-de-minaur/dh58/overview'Alex de Minaur/a by 665 points in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin. The Australian, who occupies the final qualification spot, is currently sidelined by injury./p

pWith his 40th tour-level win of the season, Hurkacz improved to 3-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Giron. The second seed will aim to continue his run in Japan, where he next meets a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/us-open/560/overview'US Open/a semi-finalist a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jack-draper/d0co/overview'Jack Draper/a or Italian qualifier a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/mattia-bellucci/b0gg/overview'Mattia Bellucci/a./p

pIn other action, Frenchman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/ugo-humbert/hh26/overview'Ugo Humbert/a moved past Japanese wild card a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/shintaro-mochizuki/m0hu/overview'Shintaro Mochizuki/a 6-1, 6-2 in 77 minutes. Mochizuki enjoyed a dream run to the semi-finals in Tokyo last year but was unable to match Humbert. The World No. 19 hit 15 winners and saved both break points he faced according to Infosys ATP Stats to reach the second round./p

pHumbert has won two ATP Tour titles this year. He will continue the quest for his third when he plays seventh seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/frances-tiafoe/td51/overview'Frances Tiafoe/a or former a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/next-gen-atp-finals/7696/overview'Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF/a champion a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/brandon-nakashima/n0ae/overview'Brandon Nakashima/a in the second round./p

p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p