US prodigy Ben Shelton (ATP 35) had his stay in Switzerland cut short on Sunday, coming off second best in a three-setter lasting a shade over two hours to Marco Cecchinato (ATP 83). The 21-year-old No. 5 seed passed up an excellent opportunity to see off the Gonet Geneva Open regular, coughing up a 5-3 lead in the first set, with the Italian eventually running out a 7-5 2-6 6-2 winner
While the Atlanta-born player rues his missed opportunity, Cecchinato – a Roland-Garros 2018 semi-finalist just days after a first-round loss at the Parc des Eaux-Vives – will now take on the winner of the opening match in today’s night session between Marc-Andrea Hüsler (ATP 82) and Yibing Wu (ATP 57).
Sunday’s last day match was a clash of the giants, with just five centimetres separating Benoît Paire (ATP 160) at 1.96m and Christopher Eubanks (ATP 86) at 2.01m. Not for the first time, the most Genevese of the French players turned in an inconsistent performance. An evenly contested first set was decided by a one-sided tie-break in which the Avignon man never got going. His confidence seemingly dented, Paire lost his serve at the start of the second and fell 4-0 behind. Though he showed some pride in pulling back to 4-3, Eubanks kept his cool to force the Frenchman to serve to stay in the match at 5-3. The 27-year-old American, another native of Atlanta, then went in for the kill, making the most of his opponent’s errors to win 7-6(2) 6-3 and set up a meeting with 2019 Gonet Geneva Open champion, Alexander Zverev.