Thanasi Kokkinakis and Chris O’Connell have both battled valiantly but ultimately bowed out to top-20 opposition as Australia’s hopes at the Dubai Tennis Championships were extinguished.
Kokkinakis, back on the main tour after his fine victory in a second-string Challenger tournament in Bahrain last week, played another impressive match against world No.20 Borna Coric but ended up being outstayed 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 7-5 in their last-16 clash on Wednesday.
Preceding him on court one, O’Connell had tried to take the attack to No.7 seed Alexander Zverev, but couldn’t cope with the German’s extra firepower and quality at the end of each set as he went down 7-5 6-4.
But there was some consolation in defeat for both Australians.
Kokkinakis, who’d dropped out of the world’s top 100 over the last couple of months, will be back in next week – he’s currently projected to be at No.94 – while O’Connell will continue his rise up the rankings, leapfrogging Jordan Thompson to become Australia’s No.4-ranked men’s player.
It was tough for Kokkinakis, though, as he produced easily his best match against Coric, who he’d never taken a set off in two previous contests.
When they played in the Davis Cup tie in Malaga in November, Coric outplayed Kokkinakis but the Adelaide man looked a different proposition as he hung in the opening set and took it with the help of a mini-break on the first point of the tiebreak.
Under the Dubai nightime lights, though, the Croat began to find his nagging range. Kokkinakis’s 20 aces helped get him out of trouble but he couldn’t create any break-point chances of his own throughout the whole contest.
With the match clock approaching three hours, Coric took his chance at 6-5 up, pressurising the Australian to seal his third break and book a quarter-final date with Daniil Medvedev.
Sydneysider O’Connell, who had to come through qualifying in Dubai after his excellent week’s work at the Qatar Open where he’d beaten Roberto Bautista Agut and gave Medvedev a scare, demonstrated his new-found confidence, not taking a backward step against No.7 seed Zverev.
But the German world No.16, feeling his way back to the top after the sickening French Open injury that wrecked his season, proved rock solid behind his serve, winning 90 per cent of the points behind his first delivery and raining down 11 aces.
Zverev raised his game to nick two breaks of serve – one at 5-5 in the first and then at 4-4 in the second, featuring some handsome winners – to seal the match in 78 minutes.
Source: AAP