Thanasi Kokkinakis, Australia’s star performer at the French Open, has been brought down to earth with a bump in Wimbledon qualifying, exiting at the first hurdle.
Adelaide’s big-hitter went down to young Swiss Leandro Riedi 7-5 6-4 as the ultra-competitive qualifying event got under way at Roehampton, a couple of miles up the road from Wimbledon on Monday, in what was a huge early setback for the Australian challenge.
At least Marc Polmans, Rinky Hijikata and James Duckworth all pulled off victories to ensure Australia would still be well represented as they successfully negotiated the first of three tough rounds, seeking to make it into the main draw at the All England Club next Monday.
There was no hiding the disappointment about the first-day exit of Kokkinakis, though, after his heroics at Roland Garros where he defeated former French Open champ Stan Wawrinka in an epic five-setter before pushing Karen Khachanov in a four-set thriller.
It was his deepest run in a slam for eight years and he talked afterwards of his hopes of once again making it into the main draw at Wimbledon, where he played the champion Novak Djokovic on centre court last year.
But his titanic efforts in Paris had left him with some physical struggles and the qualifying event’s No.2 seed was far from his sharpest as he was broken while trying to serve to stay in each set, eventually going down to defeat in less than an hour and 20 minutes.
Earlier, 31-year-old Sydneysider Duckworth, so often plagued by injury, made a fine start to the Australian challenge, coming from a set down to beat British wildcard Stuart Parker 4-6 6-3 6-1 on Roehampton’s Stadium Court, watched by a bigger crowd than you’d see at many ATP events.
“Happy with that. It was my first match on grass this year, never easy, with a fresh court and up against a good grass-court player,” said Duckworth, who played in qualifying at the same venue in 2012 but reckoned the whole event had now mushroomed into a much bigger deal.
The man who’s had 10 major surgeries to deal with his injury woes down the years keeps battling back and reckons his best years may still be to come.
“You’d rather be in the main draw than have to try to qualify but my ranking was just outside what was needed after I’ve had my fair share of injuries,” he reflected.
“I’m 31 but I feel like I’m a bit younger, having had all that time off to deal with the injuries, so hopefully I can extend my career the back end of my career.”
Melbourne’s Polmans beat Italian Andrea Vavassori 7-6 (7-3) 7-5, while Sydney’s ninth seed Rinky Hijikata beat Adelaide’s Alex Bolt 7-6 (7-2) 7-6 (11-9) after a nip-and-tuck one hour 47 minute all-Aussie battle.
On Tuesday, six of their compatriots will begin the women’s qualifying campaign, all hoping to bolster a main-draw line-up which became even more starved of Australians when it was confirmed that star turn Ajla Tomljanovic has had to pull out with a continuation of her season-wrecking knee injury.
Storm Hunter, Jaimee Fourlis, Arina Rodionova, Kim Birrell, Olivia Gadecki and Priscilla Hon will be seeking to join comeback warrior Daria Saville, who’s the lone Australian in the main draw thanks to being given a protected ranking after she suffered a torn ACL at the Japan Open last September.
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