Auger-Aliassime Faces Vukic; Zverev, Paul, Thompson In Action | Tokyo 2023 Highlights Day 1

Giron defeats Nishioka on home soil 7-6 (16-14!) 4-6 6-1 in 2hrs & 43 mins. In the end, ALL of the match stats favored Giron despite Yoshi’s impressive fight. The 1st set alone was 77mins. Both players held serve to bring things to 6 all. Neither player knew just how insane the 22.5 min tiebreaker would be. We reached a 14 all deadlock before an unforced error from Yoshi gave Giron a 15-14 lead. The American saved 5 set points before reaching 16-14 on serve to claim the 1st set.

2nd set was a much more reasonable 34 mins. Nishioka relaxed to break Giron immediately & then held serve for a 2-0 lead. Too many sloppy errors early in the set kept Giron playing from behind. Yoshi maintained his lead throughout to push the match to a decider. The 2nd set saw 11 winners apiece & Giron’s 1st serve percentages remained higher, but Nishioka had half as many unforced errors (7) as Giron (14). Both players opted for a kit change due to the humidity.

3rd set: Refreshed, Giron held serve, but did double fault, his first of the match. Nishioka worked hard to break Giron in the 3rd game as Marcos mangled his 1st serve on the net. The American held serve from then on & then worked even harder to gain a 4-1 lead. Yoshi sat on the ground during the break looking utterly exhausted & in need of some Shinto saving. Even more sloppy errors for Nishioka gave Giron a 5-1 lead as the American then enjoyed a love service hold to take the match.

Jordan Thompson played so well against Zverev. 👏

Let’s go USA! McDonald, Giron, & Paul are all through to R2! Zverev’s loss was the biggest upset of the day. His serve has lacked zverve since Beijing & he needs to rest more. I’ll post my match summaries in chunks here.

It is wonderful and joyful to see how well Girón is playing. Way to go, and may God keep blessing you.

Felix hitting a bit more confidently like he used to..thats good

Weird. Zverev usually plays great during indoor season. I get the feeling he’s become a bit of a “big tournament player,” ironically as he was anything but that from 2016-2019. Lately it feels like Zverev brings his best at the big tournaments like his RG and USO runs, but then has weirdly awful performances at smaller tournaments. That Toronto 1-6 2-6 loss to ADF was particularly bad.

I suspect by Paris and ATP Finals he’ll be playing just fine. Zverev has always taken ups and downs throughout his career.

Felix we need you back. keep it up

Insane level all-round 🤯

Good quality vid, thanks. Interesting the unique forehand style of yoshi, nice fight Altmeier and Thommy Paul, Thomson very solid fighter…..

Hello, Auger. I’m a big fan and I’m rooting for you everytime you play.Oliver from Prague (5y)