Fancied Thompson succumbs tamely at Wimbledon
Ian Chadband |
Queen’s Club star Jordan Thompson, Australia’s second-best hope of singles success at Wimbledon, has bowed out with an uncharacteristically tame performance in the second round.
The 30-year-old stalwart, in the middle of a breakthrough season in which he lifted his first ATP title, simply couldn’t back up his epic first-round comeback victory over five sets as he succumbed in three one-sided sets to American Brandon Nakashima 6-3 6-2 6-2 on a rain-hit Wednesday.
Thompson, a renowned battler who’s no stranger to five-set arm wrestles, having won eight of his 19 matches that went the distance, this time couldn’t even lay a glove on the man he fought back from two sets against to beat in last year’s first round.
Nakashima was dominant in every department as world No.40 Thompson, usually such a tough figure to down on his favourite grass courts and a player in such form that he only narrowly missed out on seeding at Wimbledon, appeared strangely out-of-sorts, unable to convert his measly two break points.
After his first-round fightback from two sets down against Russian Pavel Kotov, Thompson, Australia’s No.2 behind Alex de Minaur, had reflected that he couldn’t afford to keep having such slow starts which drag him into his familiar marathon slogs.
Once again, though, Thompson, who had been so impressive in reaching the Queen’s Club Championship semi-final just over a week earlier, was sluggish out of the blocks after a lengthy delay to the start of the match because of light rain in SW19, and was broken in his first service game of each set.
In all, his serve was cracked on five occasions as the Sydneysider made more forays to the net than usual – 41 in all, while failing to convert 16 times – only for his attacks to often get picked off, with world No.65 Nakashima striking 37 winners.
AAP
