Tristan Schoolkate has taken advantage of his wildcard entry at US Open 2024, scoring an impressive breakthrough victory in the opening round of the men\u2019s singles competition.<\/p>\n
In his Grand Slam main-draw debut, the 23-year-old from Perth staged a stunning comeback to beat Japan\u2019s Taro Daniel 4-6 4-6 6-4 7-6(6) 6-4 in an absorbing three-hour and 49-minute encounter.<\/p>\n
It is the first five-set match of Schoolkate\u2019s professional career and also his first tour-level victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like a long way back,\u201d he said of facing a two-set deficit against the world No.88.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I thought if I kept with it and kept myself in the match, there\u2019s no time limit in tennis. Obviously between points there is, but\u00a0I feel like as long as you\u2019re still playing, you\u2019ve still got a chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was down for a lot of the match. I was down a break in the third set and down a break in the fourth set. Then when I broke in the first game of the fifth set, that fifth set felt like it went forever. To finally be one step ahead, it was probably three and a half hours after winning the first game.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhysically, it was pretty draining. Mentally, it\u2019s hard to focus for so long. But I\u2019m pretty proud of how I managed it physically and mentally today and happy to get through.\u201d<\/p>\n
World No.193 Schoolkate showcased his exciting potential throughout the match, firing 18 aces and tallying 54 winners in total to beat an opponent eight years his senior and ranked 105 places higher.<\/p>\n
It is second career win against a top-100 opponent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great result and I\u2019m proud, but the tournament\u2019s not finished,\u201d Schoolkate said. \u201cHopefully I can keep it rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fellow US Open debutant, Jakub Mensik, awaits in the next round. The 18-year-old Czech upset 19th-seeded Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime in the opening round earlier today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got nothing to lose,\u201d Schoolkate said of his chances against world No.65 Mensik. \u201cI\u2019m one of the lowest-ranked guys in the draw, so I\u2019m just taking it as it comes and I\u2019ll give my best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tristan Schoolkate has taken advantage of his wildcard entry at US Open 2024, scoring an impressive breakthrough victory in the opening round of the men\u2019s singles competition. In his Grand Slam main-draw debut, the 23-year-old from Perth staged a stunning comeback to beat Japan\u2019s Taro Daniel 4-6 4-6 6-4 7-6(6) 6-4 in an absorbing three-hour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6414,"featured_media":19963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}