'It's all too much!': 'Tired' Alex De Minaur calls for shorter season
Australia's Alex De Minaur falls down as he plays Kazakhstan's Alexander Bublik. (AP Photo)
Home hope Fils charged up by crowd while a tired De Minaur calls for shorter season
THE TIMES OF INDIA AT ROLAND GARROS:
Arthur Fils gave everything he could lay his hands on to spectators at Court Suzanne Lenglen — t-shirts, sweat bands, towels and then some more.
Just as well that he saved his rackets.
The expressive 20-year-old showed gratitude to fans, who steered him out of a mid-match slump, courtesy a shaky lower back, to script a dramatic turnaround. At one point, from midway through the third set, Fils had lost 13 of 14 games to trail Spain's Jaume Munar 1-3 in the deciding fifth set. Fils, who had slowed down considerably, was suddenly in full flight.
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A couple of five-set matches, played on different courts at Roland Garros, became the talking point of the tournament. Alex De Minaur, the
French Open
's ninth seed, and Fils, the 14th seed, finished at two ends of the spectrum in their second-round outings.
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The 26-year-old Aussie and the effusive Frenchman both won the first two sets on Thursday, but lost the next two. Fils, battling a lower back injury, struggled with movement after two hours of play.
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The home crowd with calls of 'allez' and 'ole' shored up the 14th seed.
The Frenchman, who was particularly aggressive in the fifth set, slamming 20 winners in the 56-minute deciding set, scored a 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 2-6, 0-6, 6-4 win in four-hours and 30-minutes. On the other hand, De Minaur, on Court 14, went down 6-2, 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 2-6 in just under three-hours. Fils plays Andrey Rublev in the third round.
De Minaur, who hadn't dropped a set to Bublik in their previous three meetings, didn't mince words, pinning his loss squarely on mental fatigue.
'I'm tired mentally, a little bit burnt out, if anything. A lot of tennis is being played,' De Minaur said.
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After limping out of Roland Garros on Wednesday, Casper Ruud, the two-time French Open finalist, called the rankings a 'rat race'. 'You feel obligated to play, you feel like you lose a lot if you don't show up and play,' Ruud said, after his 2nd-round exit.
De Minaur joined the chorus in calling for a shorter schedule. 'What's going to happen is players' careers are going to get shorter and shorter because they'll burn out mentally,' he said. 'There's just too much tennis.'
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