Jacob Fearnley will play Czech Tomas Machac, world No 20, in the second round of the Madrid Open tennis on Saturday after a 6-3, 7-6 victory over China’s Yunchaokete Bu.
It is the first time the 23-year-old, from Edinburgh, has reached the second round of an ATP 1000 event and it looked as though he would do so in more straightforward fashion until his opponent rallied from 2-5 in the second set at one stage winning 10 out of 11 points.
But Fearnley regained composure and took his tie break record for the year to 7:1 for the loss of just a couple of points.
Meditating between change overs seemed to do Fearnley no harm and for much of the match his powerful forehand dominated while his serve and drop shot also impressed.
Indeed at one stage commentator Annabel Croft was comparing Fearnley to eight times grand slam champion, Andre Agassi!
Until the late scare it was a tight, controlled, performance by Fearnley who gave little away. his unforced error count almost ridiculously low.
Adding to a sense of excitement around the Scot is the fact he is in the bottom half of the draw where Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn injured.
First, though, will come Machac whose recent tournament win in Acapulco pushed him into the top 20 for the first ti
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