Thanasi Kokkinakis and Chris O’Connell have each battled valiantly however in the end bowed out to top-20 opposition as Australia’s hopes on the Dubai Tennis Championships had been extinguished.
Kokkinakis, again on the primary tour after his high-quality victory in a second-string Challenger event in Bahrain final week, performed one other spectacular match in opposition to world No.20 Borna Coric however ended up being outstayed 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 7-5 of their last-16 conflict on Wednesday.
Preceding him on courtroom one, O’Connell had tried to take the assault to No.7 seed Alexander Zverev, however could not address the German’s additional firepower and high quality on the finish of every set as he went down 7-5 6-4.
But there was some comfort in defeat for each Australians.
Kokkinakis, who’d dropped out of the world’s prime 100 over the past couple of months, shall be again in subsequent week – he is at the moment projected to be at No.94 – whereas O’Connell will proceed his stand up the rankings, leapfrogging Jordan Thompson to turn into Australia’s No.4-ranked males’s participant.
It was robust for Kokkinakis, although, as he produced simply his greatest match in opposition to Coric, who he’d by no means taken a set off in two earlier contests.
When they performed within the Davis Cup tie in Malaga in November, Coric outplayed Kokkinakis however the Adelaide man appeared a special proposition as he hung within the opening set and took it with the assistance of a mini-break on the primary level of the tiebreak.
Under the Dubai nightime lights, although, the Croat started to seek out his nagging vary. Kokkinakis’s 20 aces helped get him out of bother however he could not create any break-point possibilities of his personal all through the entire contest.
With the match clock approaching three hours, Coric took his likelihood at 6-5 up, pressurising the Australian to seal his third break and e-book a quarter-final date with Daniil Medvedev.
Sydneysider O’Connell, who needed to come via qualifying in Dubai after his glorious week’s work on the Qatar Open the place he’d crushed Roberto Bautista Agut and gave Medvedev a scare, demonstrated his new-found confidence, not taking a backward step in opposition to No.7 seed Zverev.
But the German world No.16, feeling his means again to the highest after the sickening French Open damage that wrecked his season, proved rock stable behind his serve, successful 90 per cent of the factors behind his first supply and raining down 11 aces.
Zverev raised his recreation to nick two breaks of serve – one at 5-5 within the first after which at 4-4 within the second, that includes some good-looking winners – to seal the match in 78 minutes.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
