British duo Jack Draper and Billy Harris progressed to the second round of the Sofia Open with opening main-draw victories on Tuesday.
Draper made light work of his meeting with Maximilian Marterer, easing to a 6-3 6-2 victory in just over an hour, while qualifier Harris fought off Marc-Andrea Huesler 6-4 3-6 7-6[5].
Following a painful early exit to Alex de Minaur at last month's Japan Open, Draper dropped down a level to compete at the Bergamo Challenger event last week, overcoming Brandon Nakashima and David Goffin en route to winning the title.
The world number 82 overcame a couple of early double faults to break Marterer in the fifth game of the contest, before also putting pressure on the 28-year-old's serve in the ninth and clinching the opener with the double break.
Neither man was wholly convincing on serve in the early exchanges, with not a single love hold between the pair in the first set, but Draper rectified that by opening the second with an ace and taking the next three points with aplomb.
Marterer - ranked 15 places below Draper at 97th - would initially dig deep in the second set, but he failed to make any inroads on the Draper serve and eventually saw his resistance broken in the sixth game.
The British number four would ostensibly have to serve out the match as Marterer took a 40-15 lead on serve in the eighth, but the German capitulated, allowing Draper to take another double break as he finished the contest on a four-game winning streak.
The 21-year-old's reward will be a last-16 tie against the top-ranked player in the tournament, Lorenzo Musetti, and earlier in the day, Harris became the only qualifier to win his first-round match.
The 28-year-old - who reached the third qualifying round of this year's Wimbledon - has been a regular participant at ITF and Challenger events in 2023, losing to Draper in the quarter-finals in Bergamo last week.
By coming through the preliminary rounds in Sofia, Harris made the main draw of an ATP Tour competition for the first time in his career, having previously tried and failed to progress to the first round of the Queen's Club Championships in June.
Winning 84% of points behind his first serve against world number 200 Huesler, Harris took just over two-and-a-half hours to march to his first-ever ATP Tour main-draw victory, despite only taking one of the 14 break opportunities he fashioned on the day.
The world number 221 will now take on German third seed Jan-Lennard Struff in the second round and is on a collision course to meet Draper in a potential all-British semi-final. body check tags ::
