Edmund bows out but his clay feats show he’s on rise
SOMETIMES you have to win ugly and at 23 Kyle Edmund still has enough time to learn to master the art.
But until he does there will be disappointments like yesterday’s at the French Open, when he was edged out in the third round by a more mercurial and gifted opponent, Fabio Fognini.
In what will be one of the odder matches at Roland Garros this year, the British No 1 lost 6-3, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 to his Italian counterpart in a three-hour 34-minute contest that was often hard to fathom.
With neither player performing to their highest level it must go down as a missed chance for the Briton, who was presented with enough opportunities to have made the last 16, further than he has been before at this event.
The troughs outnumbered the peaks in this match, punctuated with injury time-outs, foot faults and the odd tantrum (from Fognini). You could never be sure how fit the players were.
It put a full stop to Edmund’s clay-court season that began in April and he will now head on to the grass where, for the first time, he is likely to be the main attraction among home players.
When he looks at his clay campaign overall there will be plenty of encouragement to take from it, including a first ATP singles final (Marrakech), a doubles title (Estoril) and wins over Novak Djokovic and David Goffin.
Yet with a fraction more composure at some key moments it could have propelled him even higher than No17 in the world. The set point against Alex Zverev in Rome, for example, or a narrow third set loss to Denis Shapovalov in Madrid and then yesterday — the outcomes could easily have been different. The positive aspect is that he is still improving and his career trajectory has always tended to be one of steady improvement rather than spectacular ascent.
‘It’s my best clay-court run this year,’ he said. ‘I have had some good wins in the Masters events and it wasn’t a bad tournament here, a couple of good wins and a tough loss against a quality player.’
His run to the Australian Open semi-finals was not going to be replicated once he played a final loose service game at 4-5 in the decider that allowed the more experienced Fognini, 31, to barge through.
Edmund started brightly but played a terrible game at 3-2 to hand his opponent back a break immediately.
In reality he had chances to win all five sets. At 5-4 in the second Edmund called an injury time-out for treatment by the physio on his groin. Despite looking nonplussed and being broken in the next game, that time-out seemed to spark a revival in the Italian.
Edmund’s best chance in the decider came at 2-2 when he forced two break points, but could not get enough purchase on his return and Fognini was able to punch away winners to keep his nose in front.
Fognini is up close with the best on clay so it was hardly a disgrace for Edmund to fall short. Twice he carved out five-set victories in Australia, but on both those occasions had the momentum after winning the fourth. This time he failed to switch the match’s direction of travel.