Schwartzman, from Argentina, moved to 10-22 on
the season. He broke Van Assche's serve seven times in 10
chances over the 2-hour, 49-minute match and will face 27th seed
Jiri Lehecka of the Czech Republic in the next round.
Another up-and-coming Frenchman, Arthur Fils, delivered an easy
win, topping Pavel Kotov of Russia 6-1, 6-4 in 79 minutes. The
19-year-old Fils struck 25 winners compared to nine for Kotov.
"(I'm delighted) because I played against a great opponent,"
Fils said. "I've known him a long time, he plays great. I was
pretty happy with my first set, and my second set was good also.
He played some great points and great games so he came back a
little bit, but at the end I finished the match in a good
position, so I'm really happy about it."
The ATP Tour is in Shanghai for the first time since 2019 as the
pandemic caused cancellation of the tournament in the following
three years.
Nineteen of the top 20 players in the rankings are in the field,
including Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, Russian Daniil Medvedev and
Holger Rune of Denmark, who are the top three seeds.
Also Thursday, another player from France, 21-year-old qualifier
Terence Atmane, made his debut in a Masters 1000 event one to
remember with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win against Jordan Thompson of
Australia. Atmane debuted on the tour just two weeks ago in the
ATP 250 event in Zhuhai, losing in the first round to Yoshihito
Nishioka of Japan.
Atmane relied on 30 winners to advance to a second-round meeting
with Nicolas Jarry of Chile, the No. 22 seed.
Also winning Thursday were Gregoire Barrere and Quentin Halys of
France; Australians Aleksandar Vukic and Rinky Hijikata;
American J.J. Wolf; Lorenzo Sonego and Matteo Arnaldi of Italy;
Taiwan's Chun Hsin Tseng; Mikhail Kukushkin and Beibit Zhukayev,
both of Kazakhstan; Botic Van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands;
Yosuke Watanuki of Japan; and Sebastian Ofner of Austria.
--Field Level Media
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