Botic van de Zandschulp has reached the second round of the Australian Open after a dragging thriller against Ilya Ivashka. The highest placed Dutch tennis player in the world ranking needed more than 3.5 hours and four sets to beat the number 73 in the world: 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Van de Zandschulp started well in his first round match in Melbourne. He was dominant in the rallies from the start, winning his own service games easily and taking a break lead early in the first set. But a sloppy fourth service game from the Dutchman ensured that Ivashka was soon able to make up for that deficit. But immediately Van de Zandschulp placed his second break in the first set, eventually taking it 6-3.
The Dutchman showed that if he did not make too many mistakes himself, he would be a class better than his Belarusian opponent. But Van de Zandschulp did make those mistakes. It caused him to quickly fall behind a break. And he didn’t make up for that, so the second set went 6-3 to Ivashka.
It then threatened to be a struggle for the number 32 on the placement list. In a set full of endless deuce games full of mistakes, Van de Zandschulp conceded 12 break points. But he survived most of them, preventing the Ivashka from quickly running away from him. In a set that lasted almost an hour and a half, he turned the game around again. He broke Ivashka back when he served for the set win at 5-4 and then cleared two breaking chances himself. It gave the Dutchman wings, because he immediately broke his opponent again and won the third set with his fourth game in a row.
Ivashka was not yet defeated. He kept the pressure on Van de Zandschulp’s service games and also broke the Dutchman early in the fourth set. But Van de Zandschulp immediately made up for that backlog. Shortly after that, he took the race definitively. He broke Ivashka at 4-3 and then served out the match. After a thriller of more than 3.5 hours, the Dutchman is in the second round of the Australian Open.
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