Alex Michelsen sees Nishesh Basavareddy for winning Jeddah’s girlfriend | ATP Tour
Matching Report
Michelsen sees Basavareddy winning Jeddah’s girlfriend
The American moves to 1-0 in the Red Group
December 18, 2024
Peter Staples/ATP Tour
Alex Michelsen works on Wednesday in Jeddah.
By ATP staff
Alex Michelsen ended all doubts from last year’s campaign to defend his first victory at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by the PIF on Wednesday.
The American second seed defeated Nishesh Basavareddy 2-4, 4-3(5), 4-3(4), 4-2 in a high-octane battle in Jeddah. After losing all three round robin matches in his debut in 2023, Michelsen showed resilience in a one-hour, 50-minute victory to go 1-0 in the Red Group.
“Considering I went 0-3 last year, this first win felt really good,” said Michelsen, who is No. 41 in the PIF ATP Rankings. “It’s always a good feeling and I felt really comfortable doing that.
“He definitely handled it [his debut] better than last year. He was rushing me from the start, and I had no answers. Then I found my way to a few breakers. I feel like I did really well today, so that always helps.”
The match seemed to favor Basavaraddy at the end of the third set, helped by Michelsen’s volley miss. At 40/30, the 20-year-old tried a drop volley instead of a smash to give the seventh seed a way back into the match. However, the Michelsens recovered from giving up four points from 40/0 to go down and work hard to close the leading break.
“That didn’t feel right,” Michelsen said of his service game being broken at 3-2 in the third set. “I left his chip at 40/15 when he hit the line, and at 40/30 I lost the point. But I was still thinking at deuce ‘Let’s give first’, but that didn’t happen. He started overheating the breaker, but I did a pretty good job of resetting it. I’m very happy with the way I fought in the end.”
Basavareddy, the former Stanford standout who announced this month his decision to become a champion, will seek his first win at the new event on Thursday. The 19-year-old will face Shang Juncheng, who lost to sixth-ranked Luca Van Assche in the Red Group opener.
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