Spanish Carlo Alcarazza beat Croatian Marin Cilic to make progress to the last 16 open Qatari.
The top Carlos Alcaraz was prevailed by Croatian veteran Marin Cilic 6-4, 6-4 to reach the 16th round of the open Qatar.
The 36-year-old Cilic, champion of the 2014 United States, who fell to the number 192, played his first match of the season after recovering from a long-term knee injury.
The Croat led 4-3 and 0-40 on Alcaraz’s service in the second set on Friday, but the Spanish four-time winner managed to recover, then broke in the next game.
“I’m just happy to stay calm at that moment – breathing, going through my routines, making good points,” Alcarazza said. “That’s why I managed to win in two sets.”
Alcarazza will play next either Chinese Zhang Zhizhen or Italian Luca Nardi.
Earlier, Grigor Dimitrov’s seventh seed lost 6-4, 6-4 of Jiri Leheck.
Also on Monday, the British Jack Draper won the eighth Australian Alexei Popyrin 6-2, 7-6 (4) to compose a meeting with another Australian, Christopher O’Connell.
Several other best players will play their first games on Tuesday.
Second -ranked Alex de Minaur will face Roman Safilin. Novak Djokovic, who had to get out of his Australian Open semifinals with a knee injury, will take over Matteo Berrettini.
Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Stefano Tsitsipas will also play on Tuesday.
