Australian Open: Jan-Lennard Struff surprisingly fails in round one - even Hanfmann out
Jan-Lennard Struff surprisingly failed in the first round of the Australian Open.
by SID
last edit: Feb 09, 2021, 04:18 am
The 30-year-old from Warstein was defeated by the Australian wild card player Christopher O'Connell 6: 7 (2: 7), 6: 7 (5: 7), 1: 6 and had to digest a big disappointment. Yannick Hanfmann also lost the tournament with a 3: 6, 3: 6, 4: 6 defeat against the number seven seeded Russian Andrey Rublev.
Struff could not build on his strong performances from the ATP Cup. The German number two (ATP-37th) acted too error-prone against the 121st in the world to reach the second round as the third German professional after Alexander Zverev (Hamburg) and Dominik Koepfer (Furtwangen).
At the ATP Cup, Struff had beaten two professionals in the top 30 with Milos Raonic (Canada) and Dusan Lajovic (Serbia) and was accordingly hopeful at the start of the Australian Open. Last year, Struff also failed in the first round - at that time, however, at the eventual tournament winner Novak Djokovic.
Hanfmann played bravely against Rublev and fought on until the end. With the powerful and varied game of the favorite, he could only keep up in phases.