Wow! It’s been so long for this 2nd round match-up to settle, but it’s Denis Shapovalov, who rescued himself from the 2nd & 3rd set loss against Korean Kwon Soon-woo, and worked his way back to the top spot where he held on until the end with the win at Margaret Court Arena. He will now advance to Round 3 of 2022 Australian Open and face American Reilly Opelka on Friday.
Final Score: 6-7 via 6-8 tiebreaker, 7-6 via 7-3 tiebreaker, 7-6 via 8-6 tiebreaker, 5-7 & 2-6.
Shapovalov off to a great 1st set even though it wasn’t easy to come up against a decent opponent like Soon-woo, now he kinda felt gutted at times when the Canadian was narrowly fallen short twice which almost put him at risk of elimination. However, he made up lost time that led to a 5th and final set decider before Shapovalov had an easy run towards the homestretch and won after a grueling over four-hour task on the tennis court.
And Soon-woo also fought hard for the majority with Shapovalov having gone from the opening set down to a 2nd & 3rd set win which puts him one set away towards pulling an upset, but the Korean just couldn’t find the finishing touches with the inconsistency when a poor start plus not making his opponent harder to catch up by closing the gap between a lead and victory ultimately saw him being crashed out that quick during the final set decider.
He’ll be sure to learn that experience Soon-woo battled throughout the four-hour tie with Shapovalov and bounce back stronger next time, his best result was the Round 3 last year in the French Open so maybe that could inspire him to break even better records through Round 4 & even the Final 8.