It’s the first time Da Nang has hosted the professional tennis tournament, which opened on Sunday with 48 players in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)’s top ranking taking part.
Immediately after the opening ceremony the match of the day started, with the opening game featuring No. 1 host player Ly Hoang Nam against German Daniel Altmaier, who ranked 373rd in the ATP rankings.
The match was attractive right from the first game. The tight set 1 was forced into a tie-break series to decide the winner. Under the great support from home fans, Nam, who is currently ranked 432nd on the ATP rankings, won 7-0 in the tie-break to win set 1 at 1-0.
The tug-of-war continued in the second set. In the tenth game, Nam made a foul to let his opponent win 6-4, equalising the score at 1-1 after two sets.
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German Daniel Altmaier in action during his opening match against host player Ly Hoang Nam. (Photo: Vietnam Tennis Federation)
In the decisive third set, the Vietnamese player soon took a 3-1 lead. However, in the crucial 10th game, a referee's controversial decision not to recognise Nam's score helped Daniel Altmaier equalise 5-5, and then once more brought the match into the tie-break series, in which the host player was decisive to win 7-5, thereby winning the opening match at 7-6 4-6 7-6(5) after two hours and 33 minutes.
Nam will next face another German rival in the Round of 16, No. 7 seed Sebastian Fanselow, who is ranked 321st on the ATP rankings.
The same day, another host player, Trinh Linh Giang was defeated by Russian Avidzba Alen at 6-3, 6-4 after 77 minutes.
The tournament will continue today, featuring matches in men's singles and men's doubles where the focus will be the battle in the men's doubles between the host couple Ly Hoang Nam/Le Quoc Khanh against Ayeni Alafia (the US)/Stefan Vujic (Australia).
Former world No. 1 Leander Paes, who has won a total of 18 Grand Slam championships, will participate in the men's doubles event, pairing up with Mexican Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela.
Vietnamese American Daniel Nguyen promises a very interesting match against Teymuraz Gabashvili this afternoon.
The Vietnam Open Da Nang City 2019 tournament will take place until January 12.
