Aljaz Bedene won his first match since becoming a British citizen after the Slovenian-born player was successful in the opening round of qualifying for the Casablanca Open.
Bedene, the 25-year-old who has lived in the UK for seven years and became a citizen last Tuesday, claimed a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Maxime Chazal of France on the clay in Morocco. He is the top seed in the tournament and will play Austria’s Michael Linzer or France’s Maxime Teixeira in the second round.
Ranked 83 in the world, Bedene is the British No2 behind Andy Murray and ahead of James Ward in 111th place. He described his first match as a British player as “awesome”. “It’s taken a while to get to this, but it’s awesome to see,” he said on Twitter. “Happy to get the first match out of the way. Was solid to be fair and more to come which is always good. Looking forward to the next one. Thanks for all the support and love guys, I feel really lucky.”
Bedene reached his first ATP final in India at the start of the year, beating the top-20 players Roberto Bautista Agut and Feliciano López en route.
Murray described him as “a good player with a very good serve. He’s a legitimate top-100 player. When he plays challengers he’s there or thereabouts; when he plays on the main tour he wins matches. It’s not like he turns up and always loses in the first round. I would imagine he’s going to be comfortably in the top 70 or 80 in the world for a while.”
Bedene has his sights set on playing for Great Britain in the Davis Cup, although he has represented Slovenia and players are prohibited from appearing for two nations.
