This was a five-star encounter between two in-form players. You can read my match report on ‘Tennis with an Accent’ website by clicking the link below:
Osaka d. Muguruza: The Mark of A Champion
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Félix Auger-Aliassime (20) def. Denis Shapovalov (11) 7-5 7-5 6-3
Quality Plan A, recognition, poise!
I always underline the value of drawing up a good game plan before players step on the court, so I cannot help but wish I were a fly on the wall and listened in as Félix Auger-Aliassime and his team plotted the nuts and bolts of his strategy earlier on Friday over his upcoming match against his compatriot Denis Shapovalov.
Félix’s impeccable tactics led the way to earning him one of the most impressive wins of his career, a 7-5 7-5 6-3 victory over Denis, in a match that not only showcased his brilliant talent, but also his poise between the ears.
The first two sets were alike, with Denis going ahead by an early break, but Félix coming back to win each set 7-5. More than how the scoreline progressed, it’s rather the way in which Félix navigated the highs and lows at various points of the match and remained loyal to his working plan that proved top-notch. The latter consisted of sending the returns and the second shot in rallies deep, while avoiding taking unnecessary risks (read: not going for the lines, just deep to the middle of the court). The idea, I presume, was to establish early an equal footing in baseline rallies, goading his opponent into hitting riskier shots to end the point. Obviously, Denis was more likely to accelerate for the winner or at least control the point to squeeze an opportunity to come to the net rather than engage on long rallies. The longer the rallies went, the more time Denis spent behind the baseline, the better were the chances of Félix earning free points or get his own chance to finish the point.
To be fair, Shapovalov is a favorable match up, in my view, for Auger-Aliassime who has been frustrated in the past by players who count on consistency and keep a steady flow of deep balls coming back at him, thus not allowing Félix to dictate rallies (see this match report from 2020 Roland Garros for more on this). Shapovalov is not that type of player. He prefers to attempt winners from behind the baseline, make or miss, before most rallies reach 12 or 13 shots. I gather that Félix’s plan counted on him keeping the balls deep, not going for the lines too early, but still taking his chances when the opportunity presented itself (after all, it’s not like Félix is a “defensive” player either). It worked to perfection.
Auger-Aliassime seemed to recognize his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, and that it was not going to be a perfect match from the first point to the last, even if he gets the lead in the scoreboard. Remaining focused on the task was the key to his success. Anyone who closely observed his body language throughout the match would probably agree that he passed the “focus” test with flying colors. He was tuned in, never showing exaggerated emotions, always keeping eyes on the ball, on his racket, or on the court.
The only bad patch for Félix took place early in the second set. With him leading 1-0, and 0-30 on Shapovalov’s serve, he had a chance to run away with the second set because Denis was just coming off a badly lost point at the end of which he went on a rant to his box and looked quite lost. Instead, Auger-Aliassime committed two unforced errors in a row to allow his opponent back into the game and reenter the match mentally. Denis took advantage with conviction, going on a positive stretch, lading a lot of returns in the court and putting some serious heat on his groundies to roll to a 4-2 lead (Félix’s two missed approach shots in the 2-2 game also played a role).
The reality is, as much as people constantly refer to both Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime as “youngsters” and speak of their “growing pains,” these guys are, frankly, way beyond their ages in terms of maturity. They are not fragile youngsters like many other 20 and 21-year-olds. And in my view, they handle themselves well in the face of adversity during matches and know to evaluate matches with clarity. I would advise the casual tennis fan to listen to podcasts featuring either of these two “up-and-comers” or catch one of their post-match press conferences to witness for themselves the coherence of their thought process.
The above is a central part of the reason why, for example, Shapovalov knew to take advantage of Félix’s momentary blink at 0-1, 0-30 down, and it’s also why Auger-Aliassime did not fall apart after finding himself down 4-2 instead of running away with the set 15 minutes earlier. Auger-Aliassime’s body language looked no different at that point than it did earlier when he had the lead. Equally, watch Denis at 4-5 in the second set, how well he plays that game to stay in the set under pressure, shaking off the disappointment of losing the break minutes ago and finding himself in a position to hold, just to survive.
It was Auger-Aliassime finally ripping the 12th game away from Shapovalov to go up by two sets, rather than Denis giving it away. Félix, sticking to his plan, hit multiple returns back in the court deep, including in the last two points (his return on set point to the corner was exceptional, the more typical return he hit most of the match was in the point before at 30-30).
Auger-Aliassime’s gameplan reduced Shapovalov’s chances of winning points to mainly hitting great first serves or producing non-stop winners (read: taking more risks, even by his own standards). Needless to say, that is a big ask against a player as fast as Félix. Denis did not quit by any means but Félix, overflowing with confidence, was by then stroking freely and hardly making any errors. The way he protected the early break lead and shut the curtains on Shapovalov with four terrific serves served as an apt summary of the match.
The Canadian’s next-round opponent is Aslan Karatsev. It’s another opponent against whom Auger-Aliassime will not have to resort to long rallies, so a similar game plan may possibly work again. Except… have you watched Karatsev?** He can nail winners from anywhere on the court but don’t take my word for it. Watch the replay of his matches this week, especially how helpless he made Schwartzman look at times even though the Argentine is one of the better baseliners in the game.
** Popular question, it seems, all of a sudden.
Karolina Muchova (25) def. Karolina Muchova (6) 7-5 7-5
Scoreboard and self-awareness!
Considering their last thriller at Wimbledon in 2019 (13-11 in the final set), this match between two friends who know each other’s game like the back of their hands promised much intrigue. In the first set, neither player put out high-quality performances (Muchova admitted after the match that she came out nervous and thought that maybe her opponent did too). It was a patchy set, with good and bad moments. The difference was on serves, with Muchova giving a clinic on clutch first serves in the latter part of the set, starting with the break point save at 3-4, 30-40. Pliskova, for her part, was not getting the free points from her serves like she usually does and sputtered five double faults, the last one coming on break point down at 5-5.
Pliskova was frustrated and took it out on her rackets, smashing one in the 5-6 game, and another one in the tunnel when she took a break before the start of the second set. That put her down 0-15 to start the second set on a point penalty. Note: I admit, I had no idea that you could be penalized for racket abuse in the tunnel, away from the court. The official who accompanied her reported the infraction to the chair umpire who announced it and slapped the point penalty. Pliskova thought she could “do what [I] want off court.” Apparently not!
Perhaps, that helped her shake the negative vibes out, because she came out smashing her baseline shots, and more importantly, suddenly reading Muchova’s serves like an open book. At one point, Muchova’s points won on second serves dipped to the 20% range and she was not faring much better on her first serves. Pliskova, on a roll, overpowered her way to a 5-0 lead.
Lesson time here…With Karolina Muchova as your instructor…
Muchova came out of the 0-5 break sprinting to the baseline for the first point, as if she were getting ready to play a decisive tiebreaker. After she won the first point, she made a big fist pump, acting as if she got the mini-break lead in that tiebreaker. Why so pumped up out of nowhere at 0-5 down? I am fairly certain that it was not necessarily because she firmly believed, at that point, in her chances to come back from 0-5 down and win the set.
It was rather because she understood the importance of starting the third set with her serve, thus the urgency to hold for 1-5. And if she happened to win the next game to get one break back, that much better. It would mean that she clawed her way back into the match game-wise – and mentally – and be primed for the third, even if she were to lose the second set.
Well, she did indeed get the break and hold for 3-5, and more. So, in retrospect, what may have appeared an exaggerated display of emotional positivity considering the 0-5 score not only served its purpose – halting Pliskova’s roll on the scoreboard and dominance in rally patterns –, but also led to perhaps the most riveting comeback in a set in this tournament so far.
By the time Muchova got in position to level the set at 5-5 on her serve, she was dialed in, pulling off stellar shots on big points. Case in point number one, Pliskova had a last glimmer of hope to close the set out at 4-5, 30-40 on Muchova’s serve, and Muchova erased it with high-velocity first serve to the “T.” Case in point number two at 5-5, with Pliskova serving at 40-30, Muchova showed her underrated footwork to reach Pliskova’s drop shot and placed a sharp-angled placement shot on the full run (this is harder to do than she made it look, easier to rip one on the full run than “caressing” the ball to place it).
Muchova broke her opponent’s serve and held to end the match. The last two games were contested and while Muchova missed a couple of makeable approach shots, she more than made up for it with her anticipation on returns, winner production, and overall aggressive play (propelled by confidence originating in that 0-5 game). The rally patterns late in the set were the reverse of those seen in the first five games with Muchova being the aggressor this time.
She will next face the winner of the match between Belinda Bencic and Elise Mertens.
Note: For those interested, you can also find my match report on Muchova’s previous-round win over Mona Berthel by clicking here.
Once in a while you come across a match where both players start with solid game plans and push each other in the early going, until the moment where one player takes over the match not because they suddenly begin producing first-rate shots, or not because the other player stumbles onto a bad patch of errors out of nowhere, but rather because intangibles slowly but surely begin to impose in favor of one over the other. Such was the case on Court 13 on Thursday, in 25th-seeded Karolina Muchova’s 6-4 6-1 take down of Mona Barthel in one hour and 13 minutes under windy conditions.
You will not find stats on categories like craftiness, versatility, confidence, perseverance, and athleticism. And yet, they were the central reasons why Muchova, having once grabbed the decisive lead in the first set, was able to sprint to victory without looking over her shoulder.
In fact, if one strictly looked at stroke production, Barthel was able to match Muchova’s skills for most of the first set. She began with clever tactics, going for her second serves in order to halt Muchova’s intention to attack on returns, taking cuts on returns herself to put Muchova on her backfoot early in the point, and using her down-the-line accelerations in rallies from both wings to keep Muchova from stepping inside the baseline, looking to cut off the cross-court strikes to rush the net (one of Muchova’s favorite patterns).
And then, there were the intangibles…
Example 1:
At 30-30 in the 1-1 game on her serve, Barthel served two second-serve aces to hold, thus challenging her opponent to reconsider her plan to park inside the baseline and unleash on second-serve returns. But this is where confidence and belief come into play (one of the above-mentioned intangibles) and Muchova was not intimidated one bit. She kept on pressing on returns, giving a message to Barthel that the German better keep taking risks on her second serves and consistently produce, or else. “Or else” happened and Barthel, feeling the pressure herself, committed double faults at the most inopportune times throughout the match.
Example 2:
At 2-2, 0-15 on Barthel’s serve, Muchova sneak-attacked the net on a sharp cross-court backhand and finished the point with an overhead on Barthel’s floater (intangibles: high on-court IQ, versatility, athleticism). She followed that up with a terrific return winner on the German’s first serve, proving again that she was not backing down on her return positioning (intangible: persistence).
Example 3:
At 3-3, Barthel trailed 0-30, but Muchova made two unforced forehand errors in the following points to allow Barthel back into the game. Did that hold her back? Nope. She accelerated her forehand again at 30-40, landing it on the baseline this time, and Barthel could not get it back into the court (intangibles: high on-court IQ, perseverance).
Barthel essentially found herself trailing 3-4 and down a break, without having played a bad match at all up to that point, and having committed less unforced errors than her opponent. That break proved conclusive, Muchova won the first set 6-4 on her fourth set point when Barthel missed a return deep.
Barthel tried to dial up on aggressive play in the second set, but Muchova managed to derail her plans when she began herself attacking the net relentlessly whenever Barthel stretched for the ball at the baseline. The Czech even mixed in a few serve-and-volley attempts with success. She finished the match with 15 point won at the net out of 21, several of them on overheads because she set the approach up so well that Barthel had no choice but to hit a lob just to allow herself time to recover back to the middle of the court. Executing her all-court game to perfection throughout the second set, Muchova put forth some first-rate tennis, forcing Barthel into more errors in the process.
Consider for example the 30-15 point on Muchova’s serve at 0-1 in the second set. In that point, Muchova nailed an inside out forehand and Barthel, expecting Muchova once again to rush the net behind it, went for a high-risk, low-probability down-the-line passing shot (or what she thought to be a passing shot) on her backhand, and missed it wide. But in reality, Muchova had not followed her forehand to the net. Barthel could have just hit a defensive shot back to the middle of the court and relaunch the rally. Except that Muchova had attacked so many times from that position prior to that point that Barthel, expecting Muchova to once again bring the heat, felt the necessity to come up with a winner to the line, and made the error as a result. This is one of the long-term benefits of the all-court game (read: versatility and craftiness) when it’s well executed. You collect points on the turmoil your game causes inside your opponent’s head (read: intangible).
I will give one last illustration of an intangible, in the form of clutch timing. Post-match stats indicate that Muchova hit one ace in the second set. They will not indicate, however, that it came at break point down when leading 4-1, conclusively shutting the curtains on the last ray of hope Barthel had in order to climb back into the match.
Muchova’s third-round opponent is her compatriot Karolina Pliskova, seeded 6th, in what promises to be a tasty encounter for tennis fans. They met at the Majors twice, both in 2019, with Pliskova winning in straight sets at the Australian Open, and Muchova prevailing in a thrilling three-setter at Wimbledon (13-11 in the final set). I am certainly looking forward to Saturday for the third go-round between these two.
Fortune favors the brave is the best fitting motto if you wanted to summarize what took place between Pedro Martinez and Emil Ruusuvuori, ranked right next to each other at 87 and 86 respectively, on Court 13 at the Australian Open in their second-round match on Tuesday. Martinez was aiming for the second time to reach the third round at a Major (first at 2020 Roland Garros) and Ruusuvuori was at his second attempt (first at US Open 2020) to get there for the first time in his career (first at 2020 US Open).
The match began in the scenario that the 21-year-old Finnish player would have written if he had the option. Engaging Martinez in extended cross-court rallies, working the middle of the court at times, baiting Martinez to go for winners from two or three meters behind the baseline, were patterns that favored Ruusuvuori who is perfectly comfortable with the notion of relying on sheer consistency from the backcourt, à-la Swedish school of the 80s (minus Anders Jarryd and Stefan Edberg).
It worked. Like clockwork.
And if you are an admirer of Ruusuvuori’s game like me, you enjoyed watching his impeccable timing on groundstrokes combine with his footwork, to showcase some impressive baseline execution.
Unfortunately for him, it only lasted for one set, but more on that later.
Ruusuvuori outclassed Martinez in the overwhelming majority of baseline rallies, with the Spaniard committing errors not because he was going for too much too early, but rather because he was simply not matching his opponent’s consistency. That trend reflected in the first-set stats, with Pedro scoring a mere 6 winners from his groundstrokes while attacking the net only twice. He also committed 12 unforced errors in 7 games, double the amount of that committed by his opponent. Ruusuvuori grabbed the first set 6-1 after 34 minutes.
Side note:
An area of future improvement for Ruusuvuori, one that I already noted in my previous match report involving him at Roland Garros 2020, is his reluctance to venture up to the net even when he has a clear opportunity to do so (read: even when his positioning on the court points to it being the best option). For those who enjoy visual examples, put the replay to the 30-30 point at the 2-0 game in the first set for one such moment out of many throughout the match. Ruusuvuori has a clear shot from well inside the baseline, at two different moments in the rally, at blasting the ball for a winner or hitting a targeted approach shot to advance to the net. Instead, he chooses to prolong the point by making contact and backing up, rendering that particular shot ineffective and less offensive in the process than it would have been had he committed to taking the initiative. He pays for it a few shots later when Martinez drives a deep ball that Emil cannot get back in the court. To leap to the next level in his career, in my opinion, Ruusuvuori must firmly embed the offensive mindset into his primary game plan as an option.
Having been dominated in the first set, it was obvious that Martinez needed to modify “something” to shake the foundation of the match, so to speak.
He started the second set attacking the net twice in the first game (same number as he did for the totality of the first set), winning both, and added an ace to start with a hold. It was a sign of things to come. Martinez was not going to remain in submission to his opponent’s terms. He obviously decided to win – or lose – on his terms, with his racket deciding the outcome. He forged ahead, consistently pushing the envelope during rallies, looking for ways to sap Ruusuvuori’s comfort level at the baseline. He did this in the form of occasional sharp-angle accelerations, stepping inside the court to take balls on the rise and challenging his opponent to pass him at the net. He took bigger cuts on returns and flattened out his accelerations. Sure, he missed some, but he also made enough of them to keep holding his serve to steady the ship in the second set.
This shift in Martinez’s tactics put some pressure on Ruusuvuori during rallies, something that must have felt strange to him after a full set of serene efficiency from the baseline. It’s likely the reason for the sharp increase in the number of his unforced forehand errors, 10 for the second set, a high number by his standards.
Martinez got rewarded in the 4-3 game when he broke Ruusuvuori’s serve, thanks to a couple of impressive flat accelerations that earned forced errors from the Finn. It helped also that Emil gave him an assist with his only double fault of the set in that game (possible cause: fear of Pedro stepping in for the big cut on the return). The Spaniard held the next game and leveled the match at one set each.
It capped a remarkable turnaround by Martinez, winning all 8 points at the net in the set and capitalizing on the only break point he had, after just managing to stay alive through the first seven games (he had to survive three break points). His body language improved as the set progressed, thanks to increased belief in his tactical modifications that were working. He was striking cleanly, overwhelming Ruusuvuori at times with his pace.
This pattern continued until late in the fourth set. Martinez was on fire, “feeling it,” while Ruusuvuori’s game stagnated. Not only did the Finnish player become error-prone, but his strategy seemed to consist of simply “waiting out” the Martinez storm, I reckon, to see if he would start missing again. Because I neither noticed an adjustment in his tactics, nor an effort to counteract Martinez’s working game plan, unlike what Martinez did at the start of the second set when he was in dire need of modifying his plan A.
Side note:
Consider the 2-1 game in the fourth set for instance, with Martinez already up a break, for an illustration of his “win or lose, it’s my terms” mental stance. Martinez found himself down a break point at 30-40. He saved it by unleashing his shot on Ruusuvuori’s passive return and landing it on the line. In the next point, he approached the net on the first chance he got and made Emil miss the passing shot. He missed the game-point chance because he went for a big winner attempt and missed it (acceptable error, within his modified game plan). He had another shot at winning the game two points later, and his backhand winner attempt missed by a little (same as before, acceptable error). In the third ad-in, he approached the net, but Ruusuvuori hit a spectacular passing shot (note: Pedro lost the point on his terms again, making Emil come up with the goods). He nailed a forehand winner to earn his fourth chance to hold. Seeing that Ruusuvuori is stepping in for the return, he went for a high-velocity second serve to the outside — never mind the risk of double fault, he aint’ holdin’ back, remember? — and caught his opponent off guard making him miss the return. He stuck to what got him back into the match, persistently and fearlessly. Fortune favors the bold, as they say.
It looked like Martinez was running away with the match when he broke Ruusuvuori’s serve a second time to take the 4-1 lead in the fourth set. He was two games away from the match, having won 19 out of the last 25 games.
Well, tennis won’t let you get away at Majors with even the slightest drop in focus. Martinez did, and suffered for it when, out of nowhere at 4-1 15-15, he missed a routine backhand and double-faulted (his first of the set, third in the match). It must have been some type of a wake-up call for Emil because it was the first time that I noticed a visible intent on his part to modify his tactics. He began going for his shots with determination, also amping up his first serve and returns. He strung together four games in a row to take the 5-4 lead!
Then, things took a strange turn as both players pushed the limits of their endurance. After the incredible run of four games by Ruusuvuori, Martinez produced four strong first serves in succession for a blank hold, and Emil followed it up with four straight unforced errors on his serve, for a total of eight straight points won by the Spaniard, allowing him to re-grab the lead at 6-5 and get a chance to serve out the match. Except that Martinez did not, because he matched Ruusuvuori with four successive unforced errors of his own at 15-0 to lose his serve and bring forth the tiebreaker to decide the set. It was not your ordinary sequence of tennis to say the least, certainly not one you would expect from two otherwise-stable baseliners.
The tiebreak’s latter stages felt like a microcosm of the match. Martinez nailed a big forehand down-the-line that Ruusuvuori could not get back over the net to take the 5-3 lead. Despite the incredible lunging forehand return winner by Emil to equalize at 5-5, Martinez did not waver in his conviction to keep taking his chances at crunch time. He served an ace to get to match point and closed the curtains with a stellar backhand down-the-line winner that Ruusuvuori could only watch land on the corner.
Frankly, hats off to Pedro Martinez! He gave a clinic on high-IQ tactics and resolved on-court posture. This is the type of match that many juniors (and Ruusuvuori) could draw lessons from with regard to the importance of mid-match adjustments, as well as understanding that the willingness to make that change is the first step in turning a match around. Martinez firmly took that step at the beginning of the second set and applied it to his game plan from that point forward, a process that Ruusuvuori, for his part, did not go through when the third set began, although the match had already begun slipping away from him by that time. The braver player won, deservedly so, with the final score of 1-6 6-3 6-2 7-6 in three hours and nine minutes.
Martinez will face 23rd-seeded Dusan Lajovic for a spot in the fourth round.
Tennis is a game of unknowns, some say, and this first round match on Court 16 would be one of the exhibits they would show if they had to defend their position in a courtroom. The match pitted the 26-year-old ex-NCAA player (Ohio State), and Lucky Loser (boy, I cannot stand that label), Mikael Torpegaard from Denmark, ranked no.188 in the ATP, in his first main draw match at Major, against the 23-year-old South African player Lloyd Harris (ATP no.91) who has been hovering between 90 and 120, give or take, since 2018.
It all started well for Torpegaard who remained well within his limits and stuck to what he does best which is, keeping the balls deep and accelerating on his backhand when given the chance. He doesn’t have any extraordinary weapons in his arsenal per se – although I would argue that his backhand sharp cross-courts can occasionally do wonders, but that is rather a specialty shot –, but he can keep a steady flow of solid-pace baseline strokes going, forcing the opponent to take risks in order to create an opening. His second serve is deceptive, landing deep in the service box with some velocity, catching an offensive-minded returner off guard at times.
Torpegaard specifically kept the rallies to the middle of the court, not giving Harris much court space to work with, and the South African sprayed one error after another on the forehand wing to start the match as a result, trying to go for angles that did not exist. His seventh forehand unforced error at 1-1, 30-40, gave the lead to Torpegaard who guarded the break advantage all the way to the end of the set. To be clear, Torpegaard wasn’t just “rallying.” He also sent a signal early to Harris that he would not be hesitant to come to the net of the ball landed short. He approached 10 times in the first set, something to which Harris should have resorted for his part (zero approaches in the first set for the South African).
Something did happen, however, in the middle of the set, that had a major impact on the match in my view. The ballkid at the corner of the court collapsed at 4-2 for Torpegaard and play stopped for around 10 minutes. It was a petrifying sight, frankly, to briefly see the ballkid on the ground flat, facing down. The umpires and the players ran to the corner to help, doctor and trainer arriving a minute later. Thankfully, the kid was eventually escorted away, walking, and play resumed.
Torpegaard who seemed flawless up to that point, must have lost some of his intensity during the pause. He lost five straight points off the gate, three of them unforced errors, more than he had made in the six games prior to the unexpected break. He recovered in time with an ace and a 1-2 punch winner to grab the 30-15 lead on his serve at 4-3. Although he double-faulted (his first of the match) to see Harris get back to 30-30, he served one of his deceptive second serves to earn a short ball for another 1-2 punch winner, and managed to hold serve to go up 5-3. It also helped that Harris was still unable to calibrate his forehand, losing the first set 6-4 on his tenth unforced error on that wing.
Nevertheless, the momentum had perceptibly took a turn by then. First of all, Torpegaard’s first serve had gone missing. By the time the scoreboard showed 3-3 in the second set, Torpegaard’s first-serve percentage had cooled down to 32% for the set (6 out of 19), as opposed to 67% in the first set. He had just come off the 2-3 game saving two break points thanks to a missed passing shot by Harris followed by two more unforced errors by the South African on his forehand. Despite those errors, Harris had cleaned up his game up a bit and was having success coming to the net (read: getting bolder due to increased confidence), something he did not do at all in the first set as noted above. The alarm bells were ringing for Torpegaard.
Harris finally broke through on the Dane’s next service game, when Torpegaard double-faulted on break point after having to pause between the serves and tell someone in the stands to keep their voices down. Yeah, when it rains pours. Harris held serve to level the match at one set each.
The rain kept pouring, unfortunately, for Torpegaard. He missed a forehand volley at deuce on his serve in the opening game of the third set and nailed the ball to the stands in frustration, earning a code violation. Harris, for his part, was feeling just fine and got the break on a fine forehand inside-out acceleration.
The pendulum had by now swung conspicuously in Harris’s favor, and his demeanor reflected the shift. He played with confidence throughout the third set, making only three unforced errors in total, and winning all 8 points when he ventured forward to the net. And he did it the blue-collar way, as they say. While he served 21 aces for the match, in the third set he only served two, doing most of the labor from groundstrokes and at the net, working the point and pushing his opponent around. It was a vastly different look than in the first set, or even the second. He broke Torpegaard twice to pocket the third set 6-2. Torpegaard, for his part, had overtaken the role of the one with an unreliable forehand, missing a bunch from that wing, especially early in games.
Torpegaard, seemingly troubled on his left leg (didn’t I say something about pouring rain?), took a medical time out at the start of the fourth set. He was one of the players who went through the isolated hard-quarantine for 14 days, so that may have had an impact — in case you haven’t heard, the hard-quarantined men are faring terribly in the first two days –, especially considering that it was his first go-round at a Major for a five-setter, although it should be noted that he played two matches in the Adelaide International last week, losing to Hubert Hurkacz in his second one.
In any case, he was clearly hampered because he began the fourth set making a visible effort to keep the points short. He tried a drop shot or two, went for uncharacteristic winners from the baseline, and tried to quickly come to the net during rallies. It worked for one game, but Harris broke the Dane’s serve on the third game when Torpegaard slammed a makeable forehand into the net.
That proved to be the conclusive lead for Harris as he broke serve a second time when Torpegaard framed a second serve into the bottom of the net two games later (most likely struggling with the left leg push upward). The South African closed the match on his serve, winning 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-2 in two hours and 25 minutes.
It will be Harris’s fourth attempt at reaching the third round at a Major (Roland Garros 2019 and 2020, US Open 2020), and he will have to play a less patchy match than this one. He put on display some brilliant tennis at times and showed his dexterity on serves, but he will need a better start and more consistency from the baseline to have a shot at defeating David Goffin or Alexei Popyrin (Goffin leads two sets to one at the time of writing).
End notes:
— Harris served four aces for a blank game at 4-1 in the fourth set.
— Despite his level consistently going down after 4-2 in the first set for the remainder of the match, Torpegaard committed only one unforced error on his backhand in the last two sets. It is a very solid shot sporting a compact and short backswing, allowing him to withstand high-velocity strokes flowing his way from the other side of the net.
— The school of forehands had a bad day at the office. The two players combined for 39 unforced errors from that wing, versus 15 on the backhand.
To read my detailed match report on Tennis with an Accent, click here
Swiatek d. Kenin — Poland Garros ends with Iga’s fabulous flourish
