Previously, the Russian tennis player in each of the Grand Slam tournaments reached at least the second round, and at the last Wimbledon he even reached the quarterfinals. But somehow it didn’t work out with the US Open. First of all, last year Safiullin participated for the first time in this tournament. Secondly, he already lost in the first qualifying round to Flavio Cobolli in straight sets.
Can it be considered symbolic that the first main draw win came in a match against another Italian tennis player? Now Roman is only 60th in the ATP world rankings. His rival from the Apennines is below the top hundred, but a few years ago he was ranked 16th, so it was definitely not worth underestimating him. Roman didn’t even think about it, judging by the fact that he completed the victory in less than an hour and a half.
fake images
The Russian immediately won someone else’s serve in the first game. After that, the tennis players each firmly and confidently took their serve, but since Roman already had the advantage, he took the game quite calmly – 6: 4. The second began chaotically: Safiullin again took another’s serve, but Chekkinato immediately reverse-breaked. But this did not stop the Russian: he immediately gained the upper hand again. Late in the set he made another break for 6-2. During the entire third set, the Italian managed to win only eight draws, and Safiullin gave the opponent a “shuttle” for 6:0.
The Russian started very confidently, although Marco, of course, performed very poorly: he made 28 unforced errors with only 15 actively won balls and simply performed catastrophically poorly at reception, managing to return only 18% of balls after the first serve. of the opponent. .
fake images
Next, Safiullina will play against Tommy Paul, for second place, number 14 in the world ranking. True, he somehow did not make any special impression in the game of the first round, when he managed to give a set to an opponent from the third hundred of the rating.
The American, playing at home, will probably try to act more actively, so Roman needs to play prudently, allowing his opponent to make mistakes. Paul made as many as 40 unforced errors in four sets, while Roman in three games made only 19. If at the right moments you put pressure on the American, and at others, on the contrary, you let him make mistakes, then Safiullin will have good chances for a unexpected victory.
READ ALSO:
A Ukrainian woman shook hands with the Russian tennis player! And she asked Elena to win the US Open.
