Diallo continues winning ways with first-round victory at Queen's Club

Fresh off his first ATP Tour title, Montreal's Gabriel Diallo continued his winning ways with a 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 first-round victory over British wild-card Billy Harris on Tuesday at the HSBC Championships in London.

Diallo's victory capped a successful day for Canadians at ATP 500 grass-court tournaments after Félix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov won their opening matches at the Terra Wortmann Open in Halle, Germany.

The 23-year-old Diallo, who won the ATP 250 Libema Open last week, out-aced Harris 11-10 and won 85 per cent of first serve points.

He scored two more breaks than Harris, converting four of seven chances while saving four of the six he faced.

Diallo, who had a career-high ranking of No. 44 entering the tournament, will next face Jiri Lehecka of Czechia.

In Halle, Montreal's Auger-Aliassime fired 17 aces in a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-1 first-round win over Serbian qualifier Laslo Djere.

After losing a closely contested second set, Auger-Aliassime won 93 per cent of first serve points and converted two of his three chances to break in a dominant third set.

The win was Auger-Aliassime's first over Djere in three tries. The world No. 27, who was coming off a run to the semifinals last week in Stuttgart, will next face the winner of a match between eighth seed Karen Khachanov of Russia and Belgium's Zizou Bergs.

Shapovalov fought his way into the second round with a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (4) upset of sixth seed Ugo Humbert of France.

The No. 31 from Richmond Hill, Ont., won on his first match point on a forced error when Humbert returned the Canadian's serve wide. Shapovalov improved his record against Humbert to 4-2.

Humbert had a chance to serve for the match with a double break point in Game 8 of the third set, but Shapovalov recovered to hold and tie it 4-4.

Shapovalov will next face No. 24 Flavio Cobolli of Italy.

Elsewhere, Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., was defeated in the first round of the WTA 500 Berlin Tennis Open 6-4, 6-3 by Amanda Anisimova of the United States.

Anisimova broke Andreescu three times on four chances to cruise to victory in 65 minutes.

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