Luca Van Assche wins first ATP Tour title at the Estoril Open

Luca Van Assche, a French player, won the first ATP Tour title of his career at the Estoril Open, a 250-level tournament in Portugal. He beat Belgium's Alexander Blockx 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 in a final lasting about two and a half hours.

Both finalists were playing their first tour-level final. Van Assche led 3-0 in the deciding set, Blockx levelled at 5-5, and the Frenchman then broke serve again and closed out the match on his first match point. On the way to the final he had beaten compatriot Hugo Gaston and top seed Andrey Rublev, among others.

The win mattered for Van Assche's career. It lifted him to a career-high ranking inside the world's top 50 and made him the second Frenchman to win in Estoril, after Richard Gasquet in 2015. It also gave French tennis a young title winner and set up his later run in Paris, where he reached his first Masters 1000 quarter-final.