Milos Raonic was unable to celebrate his return to the ATP Tour with a title as Marin Cilic pipped him to the Istanbul Open crown in Turkey.
Raonic had played only one match since February prior to arriving in Istanbul because of a hamstring problem but found form straight away on the clay.
However, it was Cilic who proved just the stronger in the title decider, winning the opening set on a tie-break and then securing the only break of serve in the second to triumph 7-6 (7/3) 6-3.
Raonic had his chances, creating seven break points in the match, but Cilic saved all of them, helped by nine aces.
At the BMW Open in Munich, 20-year-old Alexander Zverev won his third ATP title and his first on home soil.
The German, ranked 20th, came from a break down in the opening set to defeat Argentinian qualifier Guido Pella 6-4, 6-3.
Maria Sharapova, meanwhile, set up a grudge match against Eugenie Bouchard as she continued her return from a drugs ban with a first-round win at the Madrid Open.
Sharapova's three-set triumph over Mirjana Lucic-Baroni means she will next meet the Canadian, who branded Sharapova a "cheater" prior to her return to competitive action.
Bouchard, who won her first-round match against Alize Cornet on Saturday, said she believed the Russian should have been banned for life rather then the 15-month sentence she served for taking meldonium.
She told reporters last month: "She's a cheater and I don't think a cheater in any sport should be allowed to play that sport again
"It's so unfair to all the other players who do it the right way and are true. [She's] definitely not someone I can look up to any more."
Sharapova beat Lucic-Baroni 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in her second tournament back after making the semi-finals on her return in Stuttgart last month.
Johanna Konta's struggles on clay continued as she exited the Madrid Open in the first round after a third-set capitulation against Laura Siegemund.
Konta, the tournament's sixth seed, was 3-0 up in the decider, but the in-form German rattled off five games in a row to steal a 3-6 7-5 6-4 win that finished at 2.17am local time.
The British No.1 has become a real force on the women's tour over the last 18 months but that is yet to translate to the clay as she has won just three games on the surface in her career.
There was a clear chance to make that four against a tough opponent in Siegemund, who won in Stuttgart last week in a strong field that included Angelique Kerber, Simona Halep, Konta and Maria Sharapova.
It started well as Konta claimed the first set with two breaks and looked on course for a straight-sets win when leading 5-4 in the second.
But Siegemund upped her game when it mattered, breaking Konta either side of two clutch holds to send it into a decider.
It looked like the world number seven had found a way to win it when she surged into a 3-0 lead but Siegemund again recovered with five successive games, fighting back from 0-40 down in one of them, to claim an impressive win.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here