2024-01-16 10:08:35
Austria’s current number one is eliminated in round one of the Grand Slam tournament in Melbourne.
The ÖTV men are making things really exciting at the Australian Open in Melbourne! From the red-white-red perspective, there was no happy ending on Tuesday either: one day after Dominic Thiem (ATP 92) lost to Canadian youngster Félix Auger-Aliassime (ATP 30) after a crazy 4:59-hour thriller. After losing 3:6, 5:7, 7:6 (5), 7:5, 3:6, Sebastian Ofner, the second Austrian in the singles main field, also had to say goodbye after a thrilling five-set battle. The Styrian (ATP 37) lost to the Australian host Thanasi Kokkinakis (ATP 80) by a narrow margin of 6:7 after 4:17 hours of play in the John Cain Arena in the late morning after CET in his main competition debut at the Grand Slam tournament Down Under ( 1), 6:2, 7:6 (4), 1:6, 6:7 and with 8:10 in the match tiebreak of the fifth set. This means that Austria is only represented in adult doubles at Melbourne Park.
Ofner was able to rely on his greatly improved serve again for a long time, serving 15 aces with only three double faults, Kokkinakis even had 26 aces with three double faults. Ofner also showed early in the game why he was number four on the ATP Tour in the 2023 “Pressure Points” statistics. At 1:2 he fended off the first three break points, two of them after great first serves, one with a remarkable full-stretch backhand volley. For his part, however, he missed a good chance as a receiver at 3:3. So we went into the tiebreak without any breaks, where Ofner made too many slight mistakes, while Kokkinakis played flawlessly. But Ofner stayed calm, found his game again in the second set, missed two break chances at 1-0 before he managed a first break to make it 4-2. He confirmed this after fending off a break opportunity and added the double break to equalize the set with an impressive return game.
In the third round, Ofner also presented himself as the much more active, risk-taking player, but the tiebreak went into the tiebreak without any break opportunities. This time the St. Marein player made this much more positive than in the first set, quickly gained a 5-1 lead and took it to a 2.1 set lead. It was only at the beginning of the fourth period that Kokkinakis was able to break Ofner for the first time to make it 2-0, and ultimately a second time to make it 5-1. Not much was happening for Austria’s current top player in this phase; the fourth set was over after just 29 minutes. In the fifth round the servers dominated again, for the third time there were no breaks and for the second time there was no chance of a break at all – at the Australian Open it was an all-important match tiebreak up to ten points. There, nuances tipped the scales in favor of Kokkinakis: Ofner was able to catch up on a mini-break twice, but a 7:6 lead turned into 7:9 – the third mini-break conceded could ultimately no longer be made up for. “The Kokk” ended the match with a service winner, to the delight of the cauldron in the third largest stadium Down Under.
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#Ofner #loses #5sentence #thriller