The battles involving a low-ranked (below top-50), relatively unpopular players are most fascinating to watch during the initial rounds of a Grand Slam. For they will be up against a top-seed, whose game they know too well. But the top-ranked player, on many occasions, might not have encountered The Other Guy before. Hence, wouldn’t know what to expect. In these David vs Goliath battles, the underdogs aren’t always deprived of all advantage. Their unfamiliarity can sometimes be their weapons.
This, precisely, is what Jared Donaldson and Dušan Lajovic did to Grigor Dimitrov and Alexander Zverev, respectively on the fourth day of the French Open. Lajovic threatened to hand Zverev his sixth loss in 10 five-setters before going down 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, 1-6, 2-6. And, Donaldson lost 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 8-10 to the fourth seeded Dimitrov in what will go down as the match of the tournament so far.
Zverev shows his class
Ahead of his clash against the 21-year-old second seed Alexander Zverev, Lajovic wasn’t too intimidated. “I’m in my career-best form on clay. I’m looking forward to this match – though it could have come a little bit later,” Lajovic had told Sportklub.
As a qualifier, Lajovic, ranked 60th in the world, had made it to the quarter-finals of the Madrid Masters, where he lost to the tournament’s runner-up Dominic Thiem.
On Wednesday, he was up against the champion at Madrid. But Zverev in the Masters and Zverev in the Slams, are different beasts. The pressure of playing in a Slam, Zverev’s yet to conquer and from the mastery over the best-of-five-sets, the German seems far away. Young Zverev won five titles (two of them Masters) last year and got to the finals in every surface but his best result in a Slam was reaching the round of 16 at Wimbledon.
At the Australian Open this year, he lost to Hyeon Chung 7-5, 6-7, 6-2, 3-6, 0-6 – his fifth loss in the nine five-setters he’d played so far.
So, the fate of Zverev, despite being one of the in-form players on clay this year with 17 wins and two titles, against Lajovic wasn’t too certain when Lajovic led 6-2, 3-1.
The kick-serve of Lajovic seemed to trouble Zverev. He stood a little behind the baseline and hit wide often. In the first set, he made 14 unforced errors to his opponent’s nine even as both had hit nine winners each.
Zverev continued to err in the second set. The German, from the baseline, couldn’t counter his opponent’s one-handed backhands well. After his own backhand went long, Lajovic broke Zverev 3-1 and Zverev broke his racquet. Zverev however, soon gained composure to break back and win the second one 7-5.
Zverev erred in the third again, double-faulting on a break point, handing the advantage back to his opponent. Lajovic held his service games and took the third 6-4.
With the reserves of strength seemed to be draining out for Lajovic, he couldn’t keep up with Zverev, who produced his best tennis of the match when it mattered the most.
“Actually, in the fourth and fifth sets, I really felt good out there even though I was a little bit tired and a little bit fatigued. My serve started working better. I started playing from the baseline much better,” Zverev said after the match.
Escape to victory
Unlike Zverev, Dimitrov hasn’t had a great clay season. At Monte Carlo, he lost to the master of the surface, Rafael Nadal, in straight sets in the semis. Nadal’s countryman Pablo Carreno Busta beat him at Barcelona Open quarter-final. In Madrid, he fell in the first round he played to Raonic. At Rome, Kei Nishikori knocked him out in the first round again.
His American opponent, Donaldson, had never tasted victory at the Parisian clay – and was 0-3 against his top-5 opponents.
Of the many things that Dimitrov mightn’t have known about Donaldson, one would have been that the latter would have become a poker player if he didn’t play tennis (according to his ATP bio).
On Wednesday, he showed why.
At 6-6, 40-30 in the fifth set, Donaldson bounced the ball once, bought it close to his racquet and instead of throwing it up, he dropped it and hit and underarm serve that took Dimitrov (and perhaps everyone else witnessing the match) by surprise. Dimitrov returned long and lost the game.
This cheeky gamble was also probably to win a free point for, by now, Donaldson was struggling to move his cramped left leg.
The Bulgarian took advantage of this and finished off the match in the next five games.
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