LOCAL HOPES HIT AS POPYRIN, O’CONNELL FADE OUT
Aussie ace brushes off leg soreness issue
DAY four at the Australian Open started with hope but an afternoon of losses put a big hole in the male Aussie contingent at Melbourne Park.
A five-setter on Tuesday zapped all the juice from Aussie wildcard Alexei Popyrin, pictured, who made his earliest exit in three years after another marathon match.
Then Chris O’Connell couldn’t recapture the stunning form that he displayed in a dominant straight-sets opening win, failing to win a set in his second round loss to Moldova’s Radu Albot.
Aiming to make the third round for the third straight year, 21-year-old Popyrin started flat after his massive effort in round one, fought back, twice, but ultimately ran out of gas as South African Lloyd Harris took him down 6-2 1-6 6-3 6-7 6-3.
The young Aussie certainly earned his $150,000 prizemoney however, spending close to seven hours on court in his two matches at Melbourne Park.
Popyrin couldn’t get going early and was just “moving the ball around the court” according to commentator Wally Masur as he was whipped 6-2 in just 25 minutes in the opening set.
But the turnaround was immediate, and stunning.
The Aussie quickly got right over the top of his South African opponent, dominating every game on his way to an even quicker 6-1 second set win in just 23 minutes.
The longer the match went, however, the longer each set lasted too, which proved telling.
In hot and humid and windy conditions, Popyrin was rubbing ice packs on his quads at every break, and during the fourth after Harris took the third.
The fourth set was the closest of the game, and lasted the longest, at 55 minutes, and while Popyrin was staring down the barrel, down 4-2 in the tie-break, he responded, again, went up 6-4, then won it 7-5.
But that was all she wrote for the Aussie who went down 4-2 in the fifth and final set and after Popyrin slowly trudged to his bag to get a new racket couldn’t muster much more, eventually losing 6-3 to make his Open exit.
Sydneysider O’Connell had chances to win the third set in the tie-break before losing it 10-8 in Albot’s 6-2 7-5 7-6 win.
WORLD No.1 Ash Barty has dismissed her left leg issue as nothing serious despite wearing significant strapping again in her second-round victory over fellow Australian Daria Gavrilova on Thursday.
The 24-year-old Queenslander revealed after the 6-1 7-6(9-7) win that her leg first became sore while she was warming up for her opening match early on Tuesday.
However, Barty didn’t start wearing any strapping until her doubles match the next day. She said she was dealing with general soreness from playing a lot of matches in a short period following almost a year off, after saying on court she was as “fit as a fiddle”.
Asked which muscle sore, Barty smiled and was said:
“My leg muscle. The bandage is very big, but that’s more just support, so that the tape itself doesn’t fall off,” she said.
“I played a lot of matches in the last 10 days after not playing for 12 months, which is natural. It’s more of an assistance than anything else.
“Obviously, it’s not affecting the way that I can play in any way. It’s just more giving the leg some assistance to make sure it doesn’t get to a point where it’s going to affect me.”
Barty never reached any great heights against Gavrilova — certainly nothing like last week’s Yarra Valley Classic final triumph over Garbine Muguruza — and stumbled with the finish line in sight. The top seed dropped serve at the start of both sets, but more peculiar was how, after serving for the match at 5-2 in the second set, she conceded four games in a row.
Barty even had to save a pair of set points in the tiebreak — one on Gavrilova’s serve — before a wayward forehand sealed her passage to round three. “I was doing all the right things up until (5-2), then I feel like I, a little bit, just lost my way tactically, more with just having the right intent and going about it the right way,” she said.
“Even if I did miss, I wanted to miss in the right way. I just kind of lost that a little bit through that second set, but I was happy in the end to be able to get through.
“I think it’s natural. I haven’t played a lot of tennis over the last 12 months. Obviously, I’m going to have ebbs and flows not only in your concentration but your level of play as well.”
Gavrilova struggled mightily on serve, dropping six of her first seven service games before securing some belated holds during her second-set rally.
Barty, pictured, progresses to a match-up with Russian 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, who ousted Czech Republic’s Barbora Krejcikova 6-3 7-6(7-4).
“I’ve never hit with her. That’s a new one for me. I think that’s the time for ‘Tyz’ (coach Craig Tyzzer) and I to sit down and do our homework,” she said.
“She’s playing some very good tennis, had a great week last week as well, and certainly has got her foot firmly set in the season and is going ahead well.”