Pablo Cuevas won the Croation Open in 2014 and Marco Cecchinato did the same in 2018. In his match against Spaniard Bernabe Zapata Miralles, Cuevas was a break behind in the third set but managed to tie the score to 4-4. Unfortunately for him, the rebreak immediately followed, as a result of which the Uruguayan lost the match and is out of the single tournament (6-4, 2-6, 4-6).
The tournament is also over for Marco Cecchinato. In the first round, the Italian was still too strong for Slovenia’s Aljaz Bedene. Despite the Slovenian’s hard service, he never got into trouble. With a good spread of deep balls on the Slovenian’s back and forhand interspersed with subtle drop shots, he had the better of the game, to which the Slovenian had to fail to answer and resulted in a resounding victory in straight sets (6-1 and 6-2).
The next game was in stark contrast. Where everything seemed to work against Bedene, the balls against Damir Dzumhur from Bosnia and Herzegovina always fell just on the wrong side of the line or ended up in the net. It is always a joy to watch the fanatic Dzumhur play. The energy and the will to win explode from the first to the last second of the match. Unlike Bedene, Dzumhur certainly doesn’t have a sledgehammer of a serve, but he completely disrupted the Italian’s game with very varied play and beat him with 6-3, 6-1. Earlier, he had already convincingly defeated Slovakian Filip Horansky (6-3, 6-4). His next opponent, Frenchman Richard Gasquet, has been warned.

YOU CAN SEE THE FULL PICTURES AND SLIDE SHOW. CLICK ON ANY PHOTO AND THE PICTURES ARE SHOWN AT FULL SIZE!