Russian Roman Safiullin, having qualified for Wimbledon, did not even suspect what trials he would face in the very first match. The debutant of the grass tournament in London entered the court with the intention of winning, but he achieved his goal after … several tens of hours.
This has never happened before in our guy’s career!
Managed to register
Safiullin is known as a tennis player who achieved high results in his teenage years. A native of the Moscow region won the junior Australian Open and was the second racket of the world. In adult tennis, his affairs are not so good, although he did play at two Grand Slam tournaments.
At Wimbledon, Roman previously played in the qualification, but did not qualify for the main draw. This year, he still got into the top 128, and without any selections – he was helped by a passing 92nd place in the ATP rankings. True, Safiullin was not supposed to receive additional bonuses in the form of seeding.
It is interesting that earlier the Russian got into funny stories related to TBSH. In particular, he missed Roland Garros because… he forgot to register. Fortunately for him, there were no such missteps at Wimbledon.
The first rival of Roman Safiullin was the most experienced Roberto Bautista-Agut. The Spaniard’s career has included a Davis Cup win, a Wimbledon semi-final and an Australian Open quarter-final, all in 2019. Roberto entered the current London tournament as the 20th seed.
Miracle in the second set
The match between Safiullin and Bautista-Agut began on Monday evening, July 3. It seemed that it would end as quickly as possible – in the first set, the Russian did little, while his opponent made a minimum of mistakes. Roman took two games, but it was not enough for more – 2:6.
Something similar to an equal fight began to emerge in the middle of the second set, when Safiullin got used to it and made fewer mistakes. True, sometimes he was still let down by the pitch. The swing game reached a score of 6:6 and a tie-break, where Roman managed to perform a small tennis miracle: losing 1:5, he did not flinch and pulled out a victory in the set – 7:6 (9:7).
The third batch turned out to be even more stubborn. The Russian managed to return to the game after an unsuccessful start, and with a score of 5:5 he took the 11th game to zero (having made two aces at the same time) and seemed to be as close as possible to success. But the Spaniard switched the set to a tie-break, where he no longer made gifts – 6:7 (4:7).
With the score 1:2, the match was stopped due to darkness. Tennis players went to their hotels in anticipation of Tuesday. But, as it turned out, the originally announced date and time were incorrect.
The harsh London weather intervened, in which the main role is played by rain. It is very dangerous to play on wet grass, and the organizers could not take such a risk in any way, and they still cannot stop the precipitation. Safiullin and Bautista-Agut had to spend a day in agonizing waiting, while drawing conclusions from the first three sets.
As a result, they were allowed to continue playing only on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 6. More than 40 hours have passed since the start of the match!
Success Marathon
The forced pause benefited Roman. He owned the initiative, stopped making mistakes on the pitch and generally looked more rested. The Spaniard, on the other hand, seemed to be exhausted and quickly wilted after a good start. Here, things did not come to a tie-break – Safiullin took the fourth set with a score of 6:4.
In the decisive game there was a classic swing game with game exchange. Until the score was 5:5, the tennis players did not make a single break – both served flawlessly. Proof of this is the fact that only in one game out of the first ten it came to “over-under” – all the rest climbed with an enviable advantage of the server. This trend was broken by Roman, who pulled out a break in the 11th game and got a huge advantage. He did not miss it: the Spaniard’s mistake at the reception brought Safiullin a sensational victory – 7:5 in the fifth set and 3:2 in the match.
The three-day marathon, which in total took about 47 hours (of which only 4 hours and 8 minutes were spent on the court), ended with the success of the Russian. In the second round he will play Corentin Moutet. Of course, I would like such extreme matches as with Roberto Bautista-Agut to remain in the past for Roman Safiullin.
I am a sports journalist who has written for a number of Sportish. I have a background in journalism and have been writing since I was young. My main focus is sports news, but I also write about general news. I am currently working as an author at Sportish.
(Melbourne) The ex-no 1 world Naomi Osaka (current 17e in the WTA rankings) qualified Tuesday in three sets for the second round of the Australian Open.
Crowned in Melbourne in 2019 and 2021, the Japanese won 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 against the Croatian Antonia Ruzic (65e).
The four-time Grand Slam winner will play in the next round against Romanian Sorana Cirstea (41e), who started the last Australian Open of her career at age 35 by eliminating the German Eva Lys (39e).
Entering the court with a white parasol, a wide-brimmed hat and a long white train, Osaka started the match with her feet on the ground to quickly lead 3-0.
Ruzic recovered to 3-3 before again losing three games in a row and the first set.
The Croatian responded in the second round, winning by the same score.
In the decisive set, Osaka broke from the start to break away at 2-0, but Ruzic came back to her level again before taking her throw in to lead 4-3, service to follow.
This time it was the Japanese who held on to get back to 4-4, before inflicting a shutout then a new break on Ruzic to seal her qualification with a final winning backhand, after almost 2 hours 30 minutes of fighting.
Osaka played her first Grand Slam match on Tuesday since her semi-final at the United States Open in September, her best run in a major tournament since she returned to the circuit in early 2024 after the birth of her first child.
I am a sports journalist who has worked in print and online. I have authored articles for a sports website and have covered sports news for over 6 years.
(Melbourne) World No.2 Jannik Sinner, double title holder, benefited on Tuesday from the retirement of Frenchman Hugo Gaston (93e), injured his abdominals, to qualify for the second round of the Australian Open.
The 24-year-old Italian was leading 6-2, 6-1 when Gaston threw in the towel.
“It’s the abs that have given up a little. I felt the pain in the middle of the first round. I called the doctor immediately at the end of the first round to get an anti-inflammatory,” explained the Frenchman who suddenly felt “like a little stab”.
He fell during the first round after returning a drop shot from Sinner, but he assured that the injury and the fall were not linked.
On the other hand, the pain in his abdominals bothered him a lot “on serve and on high balls”.
“I saw that he was not serving at a very high speed, especially in the second set,” commented Jannik Sinner in his post-match interview on Central.
“I am very happy to qualify, to return to this place that I particularly cherish […]but that’s not the way I wanted to win this match,” added the world No.2.
Sinner’s next opponent will be Croatian Dino Prizmic (127e) or the Australian James Duckworth (88e).
For his first official match of the season, the four-time Grand Slam tournament winner took a little time to settle down, notably having to save three break points in the first game.
But once he managed to take Gaston’s serve in the particularly tight sixth game, Sinner unfolded, winning the next seven games. A few moments after snatching his only game in a one-sided second round, the Frenchman informed his opponent that he was giving up, after a little over an hour of match.
“Giving up pisses me off a bit,” Gaston commented. But hey, on the other hand I can’t afford to play at 50%, even 100%, to beat Sinner…”
Undefeated since his retirement at the beginning of October in the third round of the Masters 1000 in Shanghai, the world No.2 scored a sixteenth victory in a row on Tuesday and joined Carlos Alcaraz (1) in the second round of the Australian Open.er), Alexander Zverev (3e) and Novak Djokovic (4e).
“I felt very well prepared, we worked a lot physically and on the court” during the offseason, said Sinner, who skipped the Davis Cup finals in Bologna in November to have an additional week of preparation for the 2026 season.
For his part, Lorenzo Musetti, seeded fifth, progressed due to the retirement of Raphaël Collignon of Belgium in the fourth round.
The score was 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-5 and 3-2. The nature of the injury has not been released.
Shelton hits hard
The 23-year-old American Ben Shelton inherited probably the worst draw, in the person of the first ATP player not to have been seeded, the Frenchman Ugo Humbert.
But last year’s semi-finalist, who made his name by reaching the quarter-finals in Melbourne in 2023 despite never having left the United States, was uncompromising and won 6-3, 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/5).
PHOTO MARTIN KEEP, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ben Shelton
“It’s always difficult to face Humbert in the first round, but I remained very calm, very focused on my game and I played better and better,” he stressed with satisfaction.
He will play in the second round against the Australian Dane Sweeny (182e).
Monfils eliminated in the first round of his last tournament in Australia
Gaël Monfils, who will end his career at the end of the season, was eliminated Tuesday in the first round of his last Australian Open by the inexperienced Australian Dane Sweeny (182e world) 6-7 (3/7), 7-5, 6-4, 7-5.
The 39-year-old Frenchman plays his 23e and final season. Ex-world No.6 currently 110ehe was playing his 20e Australian major since his first participation in 2005. He has reached the quarter-finals twice, in 2016 and 2022.
PHOTO PAUL CROCK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Gaël Monfils
“My journey began here in 2003 (in qualifying, Editor’s note). We are in 2026 and it is the finish line, but thank you all for accompanying me, you were great,” he told the audience from the court while generally only the winner of the matches, before the final, speaks on the field.
“I fought four hours again today, but this guy (Sweeny) is very strong. I wish him good luck,” he added to his winner.
For the latter, the victory is particularly beautiful, because in addition to having beaten one of the great names in tennis of the last twenty years, he offered himself his first victory in a Grand Slam tournament.
“It’s like I’m in a series… it’s incredible,” he commented. Before the match started, his goal was “win or lose, enjoy the chance to be there.”
As usual, the most popular French player since Yannick Noah spared no effort. And despite the encouragement of the public – in particular from a group of French people – the youth of his opponent (24 years old) visibly prevailed, as Monfils appeared so tired.
Broken one last time to be down 6-5 in the fourth set and the Australian’s service to follow, Monfils failed to reverse the situation.
“You’re here, you played your 20are Australian Open and you have entered a very closed circle: you are six players from the Open era (since the 1969 edition) to have reached this bar,” tournament director Craig Tiley told him, who came to greet him on the court.
“We want to thank you for your career, your attitude and the way you taught us how to play this wonderful game. Well done,” added Tiley.
Monfils’ last match in Melbourne, greeted by a hearty ovation from the public with “thank you Gaël” sung in the stands, lasted 3 hours 51 minutes.
I am a sports journalist who has worked in print and online. I have authored articles for a sports website and have covered sports news for over 6 years.
Russian tennis player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Danish Clara Tauson reached the second round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Pavlyuchenkova and Towson beat the duo Lyudmila Kichenok/Katie Volynets (Ukraine/USA) with a score of 6:7 (6:8), 6:4, 6:4. The meeting lasted 2 hours 52 minutes.
The next opponents of Pavlyuchenka and Tauson will be the winners of the meeting Guo Hanyu/Kristina Mladenovic (China/France, 16) – Alicia Parks/Dayana Yastremskaya (USA/Ukraine).
Grand Slam Tournament. Australian Open. Melbourne (Australia). Hard. Total prize fund: about $75 million
I am a sports journalist who has written for a number of Sportish. I have a background in journalism and have been writing since I was young. My main focus is sports news, but I also write about general news. I am currently working as an author at Sportish.
