George Loffhagen was thrilled that fine margins fell in his favour as he secured a career-best victory at the LTA’s Rothesay Open Nottingham.
Mortlake’s Loffhagen had received a wildcard into the main draw in Nottingham and was drawn against Finland’s Otto Virtanen, who is currently ranked 131st in the world.
The Brit, 22, is ranked well below Virtanen at 414th in the ATP Rankings but was a class apart on court on Tuesday, sealing a 6-3 7-6 (6) win to set up a second round meeting against qualifier Juncheng.
Loffhagen was thrilled with his performance, and was particularly pleased with how he was able to edge a close second set to avoid the contest going to a deciding set.
He said: “I thought it was a decent match.
“I started off quite well, I was serving pretty well in the first set and I managed to get a break – I played quite a good game to get that – and just managed to serve it out. I felt like I played quite well, served quite well.
“The second set was a bit more tight. I went up a break early in the set and he broke back, didn’t play a great game, and then it was just about trying to get chances on each other’s serves, as it was tough to return.
“I managed to close it out in the tiebreak – it was a bit of a tight one in the tiebreak, but I’m happy about the match.”
Victory was Loffhagen’s first on the ATP Challenger Tour, having largely played on the ITF World Tennis Tour up until now.
And he was thrilled to not only win, but also get the chance to play in front of home fans – something he has not done too regularly.
He added: “There was a bit of support which was nice, because in the Futures there’s not too many people coming to watch. It was nice to see a few familiar faces.”
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