TORONTO — Towering Canadian Gabriel Diallo beat Matteo Gigante of Italy 6-3, 7-6 (5) on Wednesday to reach the third round of the National Bank Open.
The 6-foot-8 right-hander from Montreal finished off Gigante in 1 hour, 46 minutes in the rain-interrupted match.
Diallo saved two set points at 2-5 before breaking back and eventually forcing a tiebreaker. Gigante took a 5-3 lead, the dropped the last four points, double-faulting on match point.
“Tennis is sometimes pretty crazy with the momentum switches that you see throughout a match,” Diallo said.
Diallo won his first ATP Tour title last month in the Netherlands. He’ll face the winner of a late match between second-seeded Taylor Fritz of the United States and Roberto Carballes Baena of Spain.
In other second-round matches, fourth-seeded American Ben Shelton beat French qualifier Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 6-3, and sixth-seeded Russian Andrey Rublev topped Hugo Gaston of France 6-2, 6-3.
