Edinburgh tennis pro Jacob Fearnley snapped a six match losing streak to reach the second round of the US Open at Flushing Meadows where he will now play third seed Alexander Zherev of Germany on Thursday.
The 24-year-old defeated Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut 7-5, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 in his longest ever match since turning pro – 3 hours, 24 minutes – then later addressed the nerves that once again undermined his performance without, thankfully, de-railing it.
While Jacob served 20 aces to his opponents 2 he also threw in 18 double faults but still managed to escape to victory.
Fearnley said afterwards: “If you look at when the double faults were happening – serving for the match, serving to stay in the set – they came at the highest tension moments.”
He was broken three times in the third set and said: “Those ones are definitely down to nerves more than anything.”
How does he address the problem going forward given that a first serve percentage of 51.4 would normally be in tennis terms, fatal?
“I’m not too sure. I guess it’s helpful to know that even hitting all those double faults I can win the match – that’s a positive more than anything.
“There are good days and bad days, but in recent matches the double faults have been an issue.
“I’ll be playing Zverev next on another big court – a high-stakes, high-tense environment and I think putting myself in those situations will help.”
The hope is that for Jacob this is a passing phase related to his phenomenal rise from relative obscurity and that against Zherev, who has beaten him twice this year – no disgrace – he will relax more knowing he has nothing to lose.
And by addressing the serving issues for what appears the first time publicly he has taken a significant stride towards overcoming those debilitating nerves with the overnight victory putting fun and re-assurance back into his ever so skilful game.
There is certainly no lack of mental strength and resilience as shown when he had to shut out the effects of a heckler seated in the gallery.
Jacob said: “I wanted to say something.It wasn’t abuse, just confusing and extremely loud.”
Jacob has now progressed past the first round of each of the four grand slam singles events.
In bringing down the world No 47 he is guaranteed a minimum $154.000 and 50 valuable ranking points which should take him back around the top 50 mark – up nine places.
