Edinburgh’s Jacob Fearnley stood on the brink of arguably the best straight sets win of his professional tennis career today … and then a ‘phone went off.
Serving for victory at 6-3, 5-3 against world No 27 and fifth seed Tallon Griekspoor of The Netherlands in the first round of the Nordic Open in Stockholm the 24-year-old had to pause and try to re-group in the face of the disruption by a person in the crowd before sending down a faulty second serve. It was his first double fault of a high class match in which commentators were constantly searching for superlatives and 15 or so minutes later Fearnley had lost a tie break. Lesser players might have unravelled. Not so Jacob.
It all came good in the end as Fearnley won a third set tie-break on his fourth match point but his description of the action as a “war” was totally accurate in summing up the two hour 44 minute contest.
Somehow the unusual seems to follow Fearnley around despite his calm, controlled demeanour which was again on display.
- * In Rome this year his match was disrupted by the announcement of a new pope.
- * In Madrid he was knocked off course by a power outage which meant play had to be suspended overnight.
- * In Paris he was on court while fireworks were constantly set off by football fans building up to the Champions League final in an adjacent stadium (to be fair so was his opponent, Cam Norrie).
Today a giant saltire was on display in the gallery but observers didn’t need a flag to know that a Scotsman was in action.
Getting over the line from a strong winning position has been known to hamper our sporting representatives and supporters of ex-Colinton club junior and Merchiston Castle tennis academy alumni had were put through the mill. With bells on.
Twice in the deciding set Fearnley had to serve to stay in the match but he did so brilliantly and come the crunch it was the Dutchman, winner of three ATP tour titles in the past and with wins over the likes of Medvedev and Zherev on his CV who cracked.
Remember this was only Fearnley’s fifth match on an indoor hard court at the very top level and it was interesting that LTA performance coach Mark Hilton was in his coaching box charged with helping him build on an outstanding US College career.
Statistically Jacob was in charge hitting 32 winners to his opponents 24; hitting fewer unforced errors and overall winning 53 per cent of the points.
Of paramount importance, though, was the way Jacob held his nerve in the most testing circumstances and he was honest enough to admit in his on court interview “I may have got a bit tight” (at the end of the second set). I was nervous (but) Tallon raised his game.”
A typically sporting comment from a player seen applauding Griekspoor’s contribution to a truly outstanding encounter.
Next up for Jacob will be the winner of the match between Swedish brothers Elias and Mikael Ymer. Hopefully after a day off to recover from massive physical exertions.
