Britain’s Cameron Norrie beat Jozef Kovalik 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 in the first round of the Swedish Open.
A tight first set in which neither player managed to engineer a break point on the clay went to a tiebreak.
Norrie took a 5-3 lead after steering a shot down the line from a Kovalik drop shot and then won his next two service points to take the tie-break and first set.
The Briton was 40-15 up on the Slovak’s serve in the second and sixth games of the second set but failed to take any of those four break points as his opponent resolutely held.
However, Norrie turned up the pressure at 5-4 when Kovalik was serving to stay in the match and, after going 40-0 up, took his second match point to claim victory in one hour 35 minutes.
“It was quite difficult. I was pretty nervous at the beginning, I’d not played much on clay coming straight out of Wimbledon,” said Norrie.
“It was not easy and I thought I managed my serve and competed really well.
“I served unbelievably well in the tie break so that helped get me through it. I played one of the best games of the match at the end.”
Norrie will play Rafael Nadal in the second round if the Spanish great beats Leo Borg of Sweden.
