Jan-Lennard Struff has overcome his first round hurdle at the Australian Open after a tough piece of work. He capitalized on his second match point in the final fifth set
Jan-Lennard Struff has won his first round match at the Australian Open with strong nerves in a five-set thriller. After 3:50 hours of play, the 33-year-old from Warstein beat local hero Rinky Hijikata 3:6, 6:3, 6:2, 6:7 (2:7), 7:6 (10:8), who was loudly cheered on by the crowd. In the second round, the German number two, seeded 24th, will face Miomir Kecmanović (Serbia).
Struff got into the match well in a particularly long first service game and immediately secured the break. However, the local hero hit back immediately and managed another break in the course of the first set, securing the first set 6:3.
Gull disrupts first match point
However, Manna from Warstein increasingly took control of the match, hitting twice as many winners as his opponent and taking a 2:1 lead after sets. The fourth set finally went to a tie-break, in which Hijikata looked fresher and won it clearly 7:2. The fifth set therefore had to be decided, in which Struff fought back after a break and reached the match tiebreak. He kept his nerve in this. Struffi clearly missed his first match point, which was briefly delayed by a seagull on the court. On the second, he benefited from a backhand error by Hijikata, meaning that the German is now through to the second round.
Last year, Struff had to fight his way through qualifying and then lost in the first round to the eventual semi-finalist Tommy Paul from the USA. This was followed by a strong season for the long-time Davis Cup player, who now wants to build on last year’s performance in Melbourne
Daniel Altmaier, Yannick Hanfmann and Maximilian Marterer had previously failed at their respective opening hurdles. Alexander Zverev starts the tournament on Tuesday with a clash against Dominik Koepfer from Furtwangen.
