A few days ago Polish tennis fans had a great reason to be happy. It was because Maks Kaśnikowski (194. ATP) made quite a sensation on the international stage. The 21-year-old Pole joined Hubert Hurkacz, qualifying for the main phase of the US Open. It was not an easy task at all. At the beginning of the qualifiers he defeated Emilio Nava (173. ATP) 6:2, 2:6, 6:2. Then he dealt with Stefano Napolitano (136. ATP) from Italy 7:5, 6:4, and in final He was better than Antoine Escoffier (217. ATP) from France, winning 6:3, 7:6(2).
Kaśnikowski made his debut at the US Open. It started off great
On Monday evening, Kaśnikowski played his first, historic match at the Grand Slam tournament. His opponent was the Spaniard Pedro Martinez, 43rd in the ATP ranking. This means that the two players were separated by 151 places. However, this generally hindered our tennis player in a fierce and even competition on the New York court.
From the very first game, Maks Kaśnikowski showed what he was capable of. He did not fall behind his higher-rated opponent. What's more, he often caused him huge problems with his very aggressive play. Unfortunately, youthful bravado was often combined with stress, which the 21-year-old certainly felt in one of the most important matches in his career so far. The Spaniard did not present a style that was unattainable for the Pole. Sometimes he tried bold moves – especially with returns – which are not part of his basic repertoire. They often landed outside the court. Martinez also did not avoid shortcuts to the net, which Kaśnikowski also dealt with quite well.
The fierce rivalry was reflected on the scoreboard. Both men were literally neck and neck. Neither of them gave up their serve, until finally both had six games. It is worth noting that the 43rd tennis player in the world had a chance to break several times, but each time the Pole was able to find a way to defend the break points. And one of them was crucial to winning the set. Finally, in the first set, there was a tie-break. In it, the Pole's opponent had to chase the result all the time. Our representative started the decisive phase of this set brilliantly. At one point, he was already winning 4:2, but the Spaniard was persistent. Fortunately, he finally managed to win the tie-break 8:6! – It was a knife fight. After 70 minutes, Maks wins the first set against a favored opponent from the top fifty ranking – said the Eurosport commentators.
Sensation followed sensation!
Unfortunately, everything fell apart in the second set. In it, the fans witnessed the first breaks, but they were made by Pedro Martinez. From 1:1, he quickly jumped to 4:1, to finally win the set 6:1. For the Pole, it was simply a set to forget. Unfortunately for the 21-year-old, this was not a one-time outburst by the Spaniard. Kaśnikowski lost quality, which was reflected in the result. In the third set of the match, his opponent again accelerated with each point he won. The Pole had huge physical problems, which the Spaniard exploited ruthlessly. The first break by Maks Kaśnikowski was the seed of hope, after which he immediately tied the score at 2:2. This clearly irritated his opponent, who from that moment on won… 16 points in a row and won 6:2.
It seemed that the fourth set would be just a formality for Pedro Martinez, but the 21-year-old fought until the end. After a toilet break and changing his shirt to a yellow one, he sensationally took the lead again 4:2, and won the entire set 6:3! The winner of the first round of the US Open was decided by the fifth set, in which both gentlemen initially broke each other. Then they were neck and neck again. With the score at 4:4, in the last action of this game, our player showed off a great move, after which the fans shouted loudly with joy! It was 5:4 for the 21-year-old. A moment later, the Spaniard equalized again, after which unfortunately he broke Kaśnikowski. With Martinez in the lead, the Pole made a double service fault, which could have been a breakthrough moment in Monday's clash. Despite this, our representative… did the same. He won on his opponent's serve, and the scoreboard showed 6:6. A moment later the super tie-break started!
There, emotions reached their peak. In the end, the Pole lost 6:10, but despite the defeat, his debut match at the US Open will forever be written in the history of Polish tennis. In total, the match lasted four hours and 23 minutes!