Tennis
Super sensation at Wimbledon! The Russian won an unrealistic match in three days
Roman Safiullin / Photo: © IMAGO / Eibner-Pressefoto / imago-images.de / Global Look Press
True, he did not spend all of them on the court.
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).
Over forty hours
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.
Source: Sportbox
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.
Tennis
Elina Svitolina – Linda Klimovichova. Prediction and announcement for the Australian Open match
They will face each other in the second round of the Australian Open on January 21 Elina Svitolina (WTA 12) and Linda Klimovichova (WTA 134).
The match will start at 02.00 Kyiv time.
Sport.ua together with a betting partner bet announcing the upcoming fight!
Elina Svitolina
Ukraine had as many as six representatives in the Australian Open main draw, but only Svitolina managed to get past the first round. The tennis player started here with a 6:4, 6:1 victory against Spaniard Buksha. There were difficulties in the first match when we had to come back from 1:3.
So far Elina’s season is going well, she took the cup in Auckland, her winning streak has already reached six matches. In the first match of the tournament, the Ukrainian player had only 49% of the first serve and made half as many errors as his opponent.
Ukraine’s first racquet is currently in good shape but has yet to face top opponents this year. If she is successful in the next match, Elina will face the winner of Tallia Gibson – Diana Schneider.
Linda Klimovichova
The Polish tennis player has been actively playing on the tour since 2022, but only now has he managed to get into the main draw of a major tournament for the first time. Here Klimovichova started with the qualifiers, where she did not lose a single match; The Australians passed in the order of Webb Sem – 6:2, 6:1 and Carbera – 6:4, 7:5. In the qualifying final, a 6:4 and 6:4 victory was achieved against Belgian Minnen.
Already in the main round the Polish woman defeated the British Francesca Jones, her opponent withdrew, losing 2:6, 2:3. Klimovichova was remembered for her active play in her last match, which was not completed, she achieved 24 wins, 8 against her opponent. Psychologically, this will not be difficult for a Polish woman; They don’t expect much from him.
To guess
The athletes had never met each other before, which is not surprising, since Polish women play very little in top-level tournaments. Svitolina is the favorite of these two, but Klimovichova can perform well in tennis.
Although the Polish athlete is 10 years younger, Elina should have no problems with endurance. Although the bookmakers are confident in the success of the Ukrainian athlete, I would take a total bet of more than 18.5 matches for 1.71.
Elina Svitolina01/21/2026 –
02:00
Linda Klimovichova 1.71 place a bet KRAIL License No. 559 dated 12/05/2024 Source: Sport UA
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.
All first round matches ended on January 20 Australian Open 2026. According to the results of the matches, they could not advance to the second round. 15 seeded players.
On the third day, two seeded tennis players and three seeded tennis players left the major. Tallon Grikspor completed the men’s competition [23] and João Fonseca [28]and for women: Maya Joynt [30]Leila Fernandez [22] and Lyudmila Samsonova [18].
The seeded tennis players who left the Australian Open 2026 on January 20:
- R1: Tallon Grixpor [23] – Ethan Quinn – 2:6, 3:6, 2:6
- R1: João Fonseca [28] – Eliot Spizziri – 4:6, 6:2, 1:6, 2:6
The seeded tennis players who left the Australian Open 2026 on January 20:
- R1: Maya Joynt [30] – Teresa Valentova – 4:6, 4:6
- R1: Leila Fernandez [22] – Janice Tjen – 2:6, 6:7 (1:7)
- R1: Lyudmila Samsonova [18] – Laura Siegemund – 6:0, 5:7, 4:6
Top seeded tennis players who left the Australian Open after the first round:
- Felix Auger-Aliassime [7]
- Jiri Legechka [17]
- Flavio Cobolli [20]
- Tallon Grixpor [23]
- Arthur Rinderknesh [24]
- Brandon Nakashima [27]
- João Fonseca [28]
Top seeded tennis players who left the Australian Open after the first round:
- 🏳️ Ekaterina Aleksandrova [11]
- Emma Navarro [15]
- Lyudmila Samsonova [18]
- Marta Kostyuk [20]
- Leila Fernandez [22]
- Dayana Yastremskaya [26]
- Sofia Kenin [27]
- Maya Joynt [30]
Source: Sport UA
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.
39-year-old French tennis player and husband of Elina Svitolina Gael Monfils (ATP 110) Withdrew from the 2026 Australian Open.
The Frenchman lost to the Australian in four sets in the first round of the major tournament in Melbourne Dane Sweeney (ATP 182) in 3 hours 54 minutes.
Australian Open 2026. 1/64 finals
Dane Sweeney (Australia) [Q] – Gael Monfils (France) – 6:7 (3:7), 7:5, 6:4, 7:5
Monfils played on the Australian Open courts for the 20th time. For Gael, this was his last match at the Australian slam; He will retire in 2026.
Gael’s best results at the Aus Open are quarter-finals in 2016 and 2022. Sweeney will face eighth seed Ben Shelton in the second round.
“First of all, thank you very much. My journey started with you in 2005 – that’s when I first came here. Now the year is 2026 and somehow this is already the finish line. Thank you very much for this amazing journey. You were incredible. Thank you very much. I have very good memories here… Great battles. I am lucky to have played here for many years.”
Source: Sport UA
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.
Kazakhstan’s Kairat lost their chance to qualify for the Champions League playoffs
Elina Svitolina – Linda Klimovichova. Prediction and announcement for the Australian Open match
15 seeded players were eliminated at the end of the first round at the Australian Open
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