Top seed of the tournament and therefore serious candidate for the title of this 2023 edition, Max Purcell (ranked 99th) keeps following his run on the wire. Australian player, who already experienced a very tough first round, winning his two sets in tie-break (7-6, 2-6, 7-6), witnessed similar experience to overcome French Harold Mayot (ranked 246th), in tow sets this time 7-6, 7-5. « I am quite calm and this contributes, I think, to better manage money time against my opponents», commented Max Purcell. He will be opposed in quarter finals to another French, Maxime Janvier (ranked 346th) who upset Belgium Raphaël Collignon (21 years, ranked 251st), who however defeated Benoît Paire the day before. But how difficult it was for the Picard, who came back one set down to find back more stability in his game (3-6, 6-3, 6-2).
In the first match of the nigh session, Gabriel Diallo had much less difficult to upset Ricardas Berankis (ranked 235th), last year runner-up, with a two sets victory, 6-3, 7-5. Young Canadian, who jumped in one year from 971th to 212th in ATP ranking, delighted Lille audience, and starts becoming its favorite. His explosive and spectacular tennis contributes to make him the attraction of the week. He will be faced in quarter finals this Friday to Austrian Jurij Rodionov (ranked 131st, second seed), justifying his status after his tow sets victory over French Kenny De Schepper (ranked 348th), 6-4, 6-4, in the second match of the night session.
The two other quarter finals will be 100% played with foreign players, with Michael Geerts (Belgium, ranked 233rd) against Altug Celikbilek (Turkish, ranked 208th),and Vitaliy Sachko (Ukraine, ranked 309th) against Otto Virtanen (Finland, ranked 139th and 4th seed).
