p a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.atptour.com/en/players/juncheng--shang/s0re/overview" target="_blank"Shang Juncheng/a did not take long to kick-start his campaign at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/winston-salem/6242/overview'Winston-Salem Open/a. /p
p The Chinese #NextGenATP star marked his debut appearance at the hard-court ATP 250 with a commanding 6-2, 6-1 triumph against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/francisco-comesana/c0df/overview'Francisco Comesana/a on Monday afternoon. Shang won 10 of the final 11 games to wrap a 69-minute win and set a second-round showdown with seventh seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/mariano-navone/n0bs/overview'Mariano Navone/a. /p
p After winning 80 per cent (24/30) of points behind his first serve against Comesana, according to Infosys ATP Stats, Shang improved to 20-23 for the season. The 19-year-old lefty has enjoyed a breakout year on the ATP Tour in 2024, during which he has reached semi-finals in Hong Kong and Atlanta and risen as high as No. 73 in the PIF ATP Rankings. /p
p/p
p With his victory against Comesana on Monday, Shang has also boosted his hopes of reaching the season-ending a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/next-gen-atp-finals/7696/overview'Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF/a for the first time. He is currently third in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah, with only a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/arthur-fils/f0f1/overview'Arthur Fils/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-michelsen/m0qi/overview'Alex Michelsen/a ahead of him. /p
p Meanwhile a contestant at the past two editions of the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/next-gen-atp-finals/7696/overview'Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/dominic-stricker/s0la/overview'Dominic Stricker/a, enjoyed a breakthrough of his own on Monday in Winston-Salem. The 22-year-old downed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/federico-coria/ce77/overview'Federico Coria/a 7-5, 6-2 to notch his first tour-level win of the season. /p
blockquote class="twitter-tweet"
p lang="en" dir="ltr"Stricker Strikes ????a href="https://twitter.com/DominicStricker?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@DominicStricker/a opens the day with a 7-5 6-2 win over Coria!a href="https://twitter.com/WSOpen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@WSOpen/a a href="https://t.co/TcaGjqI0FV"pic.twitter.com/TcaGjqI0FV/a/p
mdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1825618205332975844?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"August 19, 2024/a/blockquote
script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script
p The Swiss lefty Stricker reached a career-high No. 88 in the PIF ATP Rankings last October, but he did not compete for the first five months of this year due to a back injury. After beating Coria for his first Top 100 win since he upset a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/casper-ruud/rh16/overview'Casper Ruud/a in Basel last October, Stricker will next prepare for a second-round clash against 10th seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-sonego/su87/overview'Lorenzo Sonego/a. /p
p a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexandre-muller/mp20/overview'Alexandre Muller/a was also an early winner on Monday in North Carolina. The Frenchman defeated his countryman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/constant-lestienne/lb66/overview'Constant Lestienne/a 6-3, 6-2 to advance to face 15th seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/pavel-kotov/k09f/overview'Pavel Kotov/a. /p
p [NEWSLETTER FORM] /p
