3 minute read
Alex de Minaur, Chris O'Connell and Jason Kubler have brought a smile back to Australian tennis with their belated first-round wins at Wimbledon.
Alex de Minaur, Chris O'Connell and Jason Kubler have launched a belated Australian revival at Wimbledon, overcoming nerves and long, rain-hit matches to keep the country's tennis flag flying.
After Aleksandar Vukic had quickly become the country's latest casualty on Thursday, there was the distinct danger of all the remaining Australian hopes crumbling on Thursday.
But in the space of an exhilarating hour, the trio, who'd all had to wait for four days to finally complete their first-round matches, made it over the line - after the odd hiccup.
Australian No.1 de Minaur led the way, resuming his Court 18 tie 2-1 up in sets and expecting to swiftly finish the job against qualifier Kimmer Coppejans.
But feeling uncharacteristically nervy and even launching into an expletive in Spanish, which earned him a code violation in a see-saw fourth set, de Minaur admitted he was "on edge".
The Belgian, 4-2 down in the fourth set, rallied so strongly he even had the chance to serve to level at two sets all when serving at 5-4 up, only to hit the simplest forehand put-away long on set point.
The awful miss spared de Minaur a nervy final set, with the Queen's Club finalist regaining his calm and class to eventually prevail 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 6-3 7-6 (7-2).
He now has an eagerly-awaited second-round tie on Friday against Matteo Berrettini. The 2021 finalist has been struggling with an abdominal injury but that didn't stop him beating fellow Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 7-6 (9-7) 6-3.
"He is one of those unseeded guys that you probably didn't want in your section. But hey, I knew this coming in. I'm looking forward to the battle. It should be fun," shrugged de Minaur.
Fellow Sydneysider O'Connell, playing for the third straight day, at last completed his 7-5 6-4 4-6 6-4 win after starting the day two sets up against Hamad Medjedovic. But it proved harder work than he wanted as his Serbian opponent clawed back the third set.
"I'm into the third day and he's out there free-swinging. I'm going, 'What the hell?'," reflected O'Connell.
"But I knew once it got a little bit close in the fourth set he might tighten up a little bit and I had to be ready to pounce when that opportunity came about. And I did that.
"In a weird way, all the pressure was on me. He'd got nothing to lose, two-nil down so he can free swing. Such a strange match."
O'Connell, who'll play Czech Jiri Vesely next, laughed: "I'm learning like every week. It's crazy this week so far."
Soon after, the Australian camp was celebrating a third win as Brisbane's Kubler, two sets to one up overnight, finally repelled a fightback from French southpaw Ugo Humbert to win 6-4 4-6 6-2 3-6 6-3.
Just last month, Kubler had been hammered by the same opponent in 's-Hertogenbosch, but reckoned he'd learned enough lessons to turn the tables.
The only setback for the day came early on when Vukic, in his second-round contest, went down 6-3 6-1 6-4 to big-serving Frenchman Quentin Halys.
With Max Purcell, Alexei Popyrin and Jordan Thompson having already departed, Nick Kyrgios failing to make the start line with injury, and both women, Storm Hunter and Daria Saville, failing to negotiate the first round, Thursday's boost was badly needed.
"It would be a bit weird if an Australian didn't go at least into the second week of Wimbledon, so hopefully we can keep playing great," said Kubler, who could end up meeting world No.1 Carlos Alcaraz in the third round if he can beat Chile's 25th seed Nicolas Jarry on Friday.
"But it's definitely going to be challenging with the back-to-back matches on successive days coming up," added the Queenslander, who insists a slight hamstring twinge near the end of his match shouldn't be a problem.
