ATP Dubai: Hurkacz serves his way to the quarter-finals
Hubert Hurkacz, seeded third, beat Christopher O'Connell in two close sets and is now in the quarter-finals of the ATP Tour 500 tournament in Dubai.
by Johanna Brauer
last edit: Feb 28, 2024, 08:23 pm
Dominance in the service game and only one break. That almost sums up today's match of world number eight Hurkacz. In the end, the Pole was able to prevail 7:6 (7:5) and 6:4 and will now face Ugo Humbert in the quarter-finals.
Both players served their serve consistently without giving their opponent a chance to break. With Hurkacz starting, the Australian had to continually serve his serve to equalize with the Pole. The 29-year-old Connell managed to do this and it went into the tiebreak, where every point was won by the server until the score was 5:4 for Hurkacz. Connell served, lost the point and gave the Pole the first set point, which however remained unused. But Hurkacz converted the next one and won the tiebreak 7:5.
The second set began exactly as the first had ended, only this time Connell was allowed to serve first. At 3:3, the Pole had his first break chance, which he left unused for the time being. After a missed advantage for the unseeded Australian, Hurkacz converted his second break chance and took the lead 4-3. Afterwards both players served without a chance for the respective return player. The world number eight served to win at 40-0 and converted the first match point straight away.