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Wild card Jarry to face No. 2 seed Benoit Paire next
Jozef Kovalik had to dig deep against Daniel Elahi Galan to make a winning start to his Cordoba Open campaign, recording a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 victory as main draw action kicked off on Monday.
Kovalik came to Cordoba with plenty of momentum after reaching a semi-final in Istanbul on the ATP Challenger Tour to start the season. He also arrived with plenty of match play on clay, including a quarter-final run in Antalya.
The Slovakian, No. 128 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, cruised through the opening set against Galan before the Colombian began to make his way back. Galan, who was making his tournament debut in Cordoba, grabbed the second set and took a break to lead the third. Kovalik reeled off the last four games of the match to claim victory after an hour and 45 minutes.