Popyrin through, de Minaur out in Dubai

Alexei Popyrin has recorded an impressive victory over world No.19 Nikoloz Basilashvili in the Dubai Tennis Championships but Alex de Minaur has gone out in the opening round.

Australian No.1 de Minaur lost 6-3 6-7 (1-7) 7-5 to Karen Khachanov to deny him a shot at world No.1 Novak Djokovic at the ATP 500 tournament.

Popyrin, who was in the main draw as a lucky loser having lost to Jiri Vesely in qualifying, swept past Georgian Basilashvili 6-2 6-3 in an hour.

The match went with serve early on until Popyrin won seven straight games, including three successive breaks, to take the opening set and what proved an unassailable 3-0 lead in the second.

It was a welcome return to form for the world No.66 who had lost in the first round of his past five events in Sydney, the Australian Open, Montpellier, Rotterdam and Marseille.

He will now play Lithuanian qualifier Ricardas Berankis who defeated Jan-Lennard Struff.

Popyrin's compatriot de Minaur battled hard for nearly three hours against Khachanov but, having drawn level with a convincing tiebreaker to win the second set, was broken when serving at 5-6 in the third.

Having saved one match point, de Minaur failed to convert four game points, before he finally lost the match with a double-fault.

In other action, second-seeded Andrey Rublev eased past Daniel Evans 6-4 7-5, just two days after securing his ninth tour title with success in Marseille.

"I arrived at the hotel maybe at 2am today," Rublev said in his on-court interview on Tuesday.

"I slept maybe six or seven hours. I was thinking that probably no chance for me to win, and here I am, I won my first round so I'm really happy."

Italian fourth-seed Jannik Sinner saved three match points to avoid a shock defeat to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

After losing the first set, world No.10 Sinner staved off defeat in a nerve-wracking second-set tiebreaker before he prevailed 4-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-3.

"It was a very tough match... saving three match points. On the first one I got lucky because it was out, but not so far," Sinner, who will next face Andy Murray, said.

Other seeds to reach the second round were Hubert Hurkacz (5), Dennis Shapovalov (6) and Roberto Bautista Agut (8) but seventh-seeded Aslan Karatsev was sent packing by American Mackenzie McDonald.

with AP and DPA