When Stefan Kozlov made his debut on the ATP tour in 2013 as a 15-year-old, the American had not yet finished his junior career. Final appearances at the Australian Open (loss to Alexander Zverev ) and Wimbledon (where Kozlov lost to compatriot Noah Rubin) were to follow the following year. For men, the career of the now 24-year-old was rather tough: The career high is 115th in the ATP annals.

Kozlov is currently in 130th position, last time in Delray Beach he reached the quarterfinals after qualifying, where Kozlov lost to Tommy Paul. At the Australian Open earlier this year, there was at least one win against Jiri Vesely before Matteo Berrettini was too strong in the second match.

Just one main draw match 2021

In the main, however, Kozlov is hired out on the ATP Challenger Tour, where he was able to win the title in Emde 2021 in Champaign. In fact, the Montenegrin native only played one main draw match in the 2021 season: in Acapulco, where he came to Cameron Norrie lost.

In the first round of the ATP Tour 500 tournament in Acapulco 2022, Stefan Kozlov has now shown what potential he still has. He shouldn't have started at this event at all: Kozlov lost in the qualifying final against Oscar Otte in the tie-break of the third set. And therefore trained with Rafael Nadal on Monday night instead of playing for points in the peloton.

Kozlov now against Nadal

"Rafa and I played a set, at 3: 3 and 15: 0 he broke a string," said Kozlov after his marathon victory against Grigor Dimitrov. "I looked at my cell phone for a moment and had 20 text messages from ATP." It was pure intuition to pick up the phone at all. But that's how Kozlov found out that he would still move up as a lucky loser. Like Peter Gojowczyk and Denis Kudla, by the way.

Kozlov made the most of his unexpected chance, although by the end of the second set a wheelchair was ready to wheel the convulsing American off center court. But far from it. Kozlov duped Dimitrov 7:6 (8), 5:7 and 6:3 after a playing time of 3:21 hours. It was the longest match in tournament history.

Kozlov did not lose his sense of humor during the exhausting game: After his coup, he apologized with a message to Rafael Nadal that he had to stop training. But the good news: The two will see each other again in round two. As expected, Rafael Nadal had no problems in his first round match against Denis Kudla.

Here the individual tableau in Acapulco