It began like a regular first-round match. Two young stars battling it out for valuable ranking points and prize money. The crowd, unsurprisingly, were behind the Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild, who won the US Open boys’ singles title in 2018. The Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who last year played at the NextGen Finals, was cast in the role of pantomime villain.

Tension builds over Spaniard’s tricks

World #206 Seyboth Wild started the match brilliantly, breaking Davidovich Fokina in the first game of the match, although it took him eight deuces and seven break points to do so. This set the tone for a real battle of a match, and, importantly, got the crowd involved straight away.

The Spaniard’s game can be quite flashy and spectacular. His heavy use of drop shots began to wind up the Rio natives. Seyboth Wild served for the first set at 5-4 but was broken to love, further gaining the ire of the crowd. This was brought to a head when at a key point in the following game, Davidovich Fokina won a point via the use of an underarm serve.

Though this is a perfectly legitimate tactic in a tennis match the use of the underarm serve is often frowned upon as a bit of a trick or, at the very least, something to deliberately catch your opponent out. Trying this against a young Brazilian, in Rio De Janeiro, in a night match with high temperatures, was perhaps not Davidovich Fokina’s wisest move.

Although, the Spaniard did go on to win that first set 7-5. So the tactics clearly worked to get him ahead, but it made him enemy number one on the Rio main court.

Rio Open crowd makes its feelings known

For the remainder of the match, the Rio crowd cheered every winner from the racket of their man. They also cheered unforced errors, double faults and anything else that the Spaniard did wrong.

To his immense credit, Davidovich Fokina again fought back when Seyboth Wild served for the set. Then, at 6-5* the Spaniard found himself with three match points to get out of the arena with a vital victory. The first was saved with a huge net cord. The second was a well-executed one-two punch off the serve.

But on the third, Davidovich Fokina charged forward to chase down a drop volley and almost dismantled the net, and himself, in the process. His shot was long and he seemed a defeated man, lying, caked in red clay, a tangle of net and Diadora tennis gear.

🇪🇸 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina tuvo match point, se corrió todo, pero terminó estampado contra la red. El brasileño 🇧🇷 Thiago Seyboth Wild niveló el encuentro llevándose el segundo set por 7-6 y manda 2-0 en el tercero. 🎥: @TennisTVpic.twitter.com/wVk9FzEeh7 — Golpe de Tenis (@golpedetenis) February 18, 2020

The second set tiebreak

The climax of the drama really came in the second set tiebreak.

Seyboth Wild used the momentum of saving those match-points to take an early lead in the tiebreak. When Davidovich Fokina put a serve into the net the Rio crowd exploded with delight. This drove the Spaniard to the edge. Gestures to the crowd and gestures to the umpire were made to try and provide some peace for the 20-year-old. Then he threw in another underarm serve.

https://twitter.com/sluggahjells/status/1229568605815218177

Seyboth Wild complained to the umpire that he wasn’t ready. The crowd were apoplectic with rage making a huge noise and directing their anger straight at the young Spaniard. The umpire appeared a little lost by the situation but regained enough control to see Wild take the second set and force a decider after almost three hours.

That proved to be a seesawing affair, in keeping with the match, with the pair exchanging breaks. But with the crowd still firmly behind him, Seyboth Wild hung tough to break decisively at the death and seal a famous 5-7 7-6 7-5 win, just the second of his career at tour-level.

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