Keystone
Basel’s Henry Bernet, 18, will face world number 19 Jakub Mensik in the first round of his ATP tour debut at the Swiss Indoors. Stan Wawrinka starts against Miomir Kecmanovic.
He had wished for one of the top-ranked stars, and Henry Bernet got a pretty good answer. The draw for the main draw of the Swiss Indoors gave the Czech number 7 seed Jakub Mensik as an opponent. Mensik is one of the rising stars of the year and triumphed at the Masters 1000 tournament in Miami after beating Taylor Fritz and Novak Djokovic in the final.
The task for Bernet (ATP 479) against the 1.94 m giant with a powerful serve will therefore be extremely difficult, but also attractive. The junior winner of the Australian Open appears in the main draw of an ATP tournament for the first time thanks to a wild card and of course has nothing to lose.
Stan Wawrinka (ATP 137), 22 years older than Bernet, will perhaps compete for the last time at the St. Jakobshalle in Basel. His task against Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic (ATP 49) is a little easier on paper, but Wawrinka has only won two matches at ATP level this year – against players outside the top 100. After all, the only duel between the two so far did not take place that long ago. Two and a half years ago, the Lausanne native won in two sets at Indian Wells.
Feat of Bertola, painful defeat for Brunoold
If necessary, the two Swiss players will also benefit from the support of the qualifiers, where Rémy Bertola (ATP 259) will face Frenchman Quentin Halys on Sunday for a place in the main draw. The 27-year-old from Ticino clearly won in two sets against the French Adrian Mannarino (ATP 59). Mika Brunold (ATP 309), on the other hand, missed a similar shot in bitter fashion. The Basel native, six years his junior, lost to world number 62 Reilly Opelka after a good three hours of play and after being unable to capitalize on six match points in the second set tie-break, including two on his own serve.
One duel in the first round particularly stands out: top seed Taylor Fritz, last year’s US Open finalist and world number 4, will face Valentin Vacherot, the sensational winner of the Masters 1000 tournament in Shanghai last week.
