Thompson battles by Bonzi into Wimbledon third round
Glenn Moore |
Jordan Thompson came into Wimbledon with a large box of painkillers, a thick black brace for his back, and a crazy dream that somehow he would defy his body long enough to make an impact at the tournament he loves so much.
Two titanic five-set matches later the hirsute Sydneysider is still standing on the green lawns of SW19, just.
With Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt, the last Australian man to win at Wimbledon, watching on, Thompson has beaten Benjamin Bonzi 7-5 6-7 (2-7) 4-6 6-2 6-4 in nine minutes shy of four hours.
After Bonzi hit his final return into the net Thompson let out a primal scream into the cool evening sky, smiled a grin as wide as Sydney Harbour, and pointed to his heart. This was done on ticker.
After his first-round defeat of Vit Kopriva, when he came from two sets down, Thompson looked shattered and wondered aloud if he would even be able to start Wednesday’s match.
He made it on to court 15 to find 31-year-old Bonzi facing him, the 64th-ranked Frenchman who had shocked last year’s semi-finalist Daniil Medvedev in the first round.
Thompson, ranked 44 after an injury-hit season that has led to him sliding out of the top 30, is a better player than the 29-year-old from Nimes who has never been inside the top 40, especially on grass, and to start with it showed.
At 5-5 in the first set he set up two set points with a pair of superb volleys. Having broken he then came back from 0-30 on his own serve before taking the set with a sweet passing shot.
But Bonzi changed his game, driving Thompson back to limit the doubles ace’s chance to show his volleying prowess. The second set went with serve, then Bonzi won five successive points to seize control of the tiebreak.
He followed up with a break at 3-3 in the third, from which he served out.
At that stage Thompson looked done. But more than most he is a player that leaves it all out there. In the fourth he broke at 3-2, and held on to level the tie.
The final set could have gone either way as both men battled fatigue and the setting sun. Each had break point chances. Crucially, at 5-5, with a tiebreak looming, Thompson held, then broke.
He next meets Luciano Darderi, ranked 59, or Arthur Fery, the lowly ranked Englishman who upset Alexei Popyrin in the first round. Victory would take Thompson into the second week and a last-16 place for the first time in his ninth visit to Wimbledon.
AAP
