Anyone who watched Tomáš Macháč’s last matches against big opponents could have guessed what was going to happen on Thursday in Stockholm. The Czech tennis player delivered an excellent performance against three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka and, as usual, added several unique exchanges that charmed the tennis world.
Editing of the match Macháč – Wawrinka | Video: Associated Press
Tomáš Macháč in Sweden clearly demonstrated how second chances are used. Although he failed in qualifying, he entered the main competition as a lucky loser and after the elimination of four seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, he slipped straight into the second round without a job.
He met the great world tennis player, the Swiss Stan Wawrinka, and saw him leave the court after 6:4, 6:1 in just 66 minutes. “Fantastic performance,” writes the official account of the ATP association.
The 23-year-old Czech played really well, even if Wawrinka’s performance was far from perfect. The Swiss managed only three break points in the entire match, all in the seventh game of the first set. But Macháč made it through the critical moment and then dominated.
He won his second career victory against a player in the world’s top 50 and has already gone from 81st position in the live rankings to his new record: 74th place.
Thus, it continues its autumn growth. Since the beginning of September, he has played twenty matches and lost only two. He won two challengers in France and also shone for the national team at the Davis Cup.
Facing Wawrinka, 38, he only confirmed the reputation of a player capable of offering the public an attractive spectacle full of great moments against famous opponents.
In the duel with the winner of the 2014 Australian Open, the 2015 French Open and the 2016 US Open, however, one exchange stood out.
During the spectacular shootout, Macháč at one point even switched his racket from right to left hand and completed the work of art with a reflex volley at the net.
Wawrinka immediately applauded his opponent, and the show’s commentator couldn’t believe what he had just seen: “You must be joking. Wawrinka must be thinking: who the hell am I playing with?”
The official Tennis TV account rightly expressed: “Macháč’s madness”.
“From the start, I played well on the serve and on the return, I am satisfied with my performance. At the end of the first set, I played very well, in the second I did not drop a single ball. My level The match went well,” Macháč said a little shyly after the match, without stormy celebrations, without gestures, he even shook Wawrinka’s hand in front of the net with a somewhat desolate expression.
And he probably had no idea how long a black streak he had just broken from a Czech tennis perspective.
Stan Wawrinka dominated seventeen consecutive matches against one of the Czech players. The last time Tomáš Berdych managed to defeat him was on February 3, 2013 in the first round of the Davis Cup, that is, at the start of the journey to defend the iconic team trophy.
Since then, Berdych has never beaten Wawrinka, he has not beaten him six times in a row.
After one of the victories of his life, Macháč will play his second quarter-final on the ATP Tour, it was not enough against the German Yannick Hanfmann in the first on clay in Houston in April. From now on, his opponent in the fight for the semi-finals will be the Serbian Laslo Djere, 35th player in the world ranking.
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