Max Purcell’s hopes of inflicting an early sensation at Wimbledon have shortly evaporated on the opening morning of the Championships.
Even because the Australian contingent had been nonetheless coming to phrases with news of Nick Kyrgios’ late eve-of-tournament withdrawal, the Wimbledon males’s doubles champion Purcell was swiftly blown away on No.3 court docket by No.7 seed Andrey Rublev on Monday.
Purcell had talked up his probabilities of an upset, adamant that he wasn’t right here to “make up the numbers”, however other than one purple patch in the beginning of the second set, he was outplayed by the Russian 6-3 7-5 6-4 in simply over an hour and a half.
In a unprecedented turnaround as Purcell, the Australian No.3, led 5-2 within the second set and appeared poised to stage the match, the Sydneysider then misplaced the plot, surrendering six video games in a row in a sequence that included dropping 19 consecutive factors.
The transformation had been putting because the 25-year-old Purcell had performed some sensible tennis within the second set, upping his stage with some glorious slicing and dicing, incisive volleying and the odd pretty lob.
He even threw in an underarm serve – fairly unsuccessfully – as the variability in his recreation appeared to rattle Rublev, who began chuntering to himself unhappily.
But when the sport was performed on the Russian’s phrases from the backcourt, his energy and accuracy all the time had Purcell on the backfoot.
Purcell, who gained the boys’s doubles with Matt Ebden final 12 months, will now flip his attentions to that occasion, enjoying alongside Jordan Thompson, who was additionally in singles motion on Monday.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
