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Sydney wildcard Christopher O’Connell has marched into the quarter-finals of the Adelaide International but South Australian Alex Bolt’s dreams of a home fairytale have been denied emphatically by top seed Tommy Paul.
Key points:
Alex Bolt was cheered on by his home crowd, but was solidly beaten by Tommy PaulChristopher O’Connell thumped Alexander Shevchenko without facing a break pointO’Connell took a break from tennis in 2018 to clean boats
O’Connell hardly broke sweat in trouncing Alexander Shevchenko 6-3, 6-1 on Wednesday to book a date with third seed Sebastian Korda in the final eight at Memorial Drive.
O’Connell, who temporarily retired from the sport to clean boats in 2018 following a spate of injuries, whizzed 12 aces past his Russian opponent and didn’t face a break point.
Bolt, a quarter-finalist at Adelaide in 2020 and cheered on by a parochial home crowd, was unable to follow O’Connell’s lead, thoroughly outclassed by world number 13 Paul 6-3, 6-2.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better match,” said Paul, who will play Jack Draper for a berth in the semi-finals.
“I thought I played a really clean match. I’m really excited to get the season started. I’m excited to be back out here.”
Draper, who beat Paul in last year’s Adelaide International, advanced after surviving a drama-filled 5-7, 7-6 (11/9), 7-6 (9/7) marathon against Serb Miomir Kecmanovic.
He saved two match points in the second set before overcoming a 2-5 deficit in the third-set tiebreak to prevail in three hours, 39 minutes.
Play was halted for several minutes during the deciding set with Kecmanovic refused to play until a supervisor was called out.
He was irate at being denied a medical time-out while also being on the wrong end of a controversial call, with the umpire ruling a ball that got stuck in the net tape in Draper’s favour to put the Englishman up 6-5.
Earlier, second seed Nicolas Jarry saved a match point in his tense 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (9/7), 6-4 victory over Italian Matteo Arnaldi.
Jarry, who also came back from match points down against the same opponent last season in Beijing, fell behind 6-7 in the breaker with two Arnaldi serves to come before the big Chilean rattled off the next three points and maintained that high level in the third.
Korda advanced with a hard-fought 6-4, 7-6 (12/10) win against Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego.
AAP
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