Diego Schwartzman took an unprecedented step for him in the Masters 1000 de Indian Wells: he got into the knockout stages of the tournament for the first time, known as the “fifth grand slam”. Although he had to fight from behind to achieve that goal. Because the Argentine, 11th favorite, gave up the first set against the British Daniel Evans, 22nd in the ranking; but he reacted in time and was left with the victory by 5-7, 6-4 and 6-0.
The porteño, 15th in the world, was more solid than his rival at the start of the game and was 5-2 up on the scoreboard. But he hesitated when closing the set, with some mistakes in key moments that made him lose focus a bit.
Evans saw his opportunity and did not let it pass. He recovered the serve first and equalized the score 5-5. He then made a new break in the 12th game and finally sealed it 7-5 with his serve.
Evans lifted a 2-5 deficit in the first set. Fotp Clive Brunskill / Getty Images / AFP
–
Evans extended his hot streak at the start of the second set. He broke very quickly, in the third game, and then went ahead 3-1. Schwartzman, puzzled, could not find a way to reduce the distance against an opponent that complicated it with a great variety of services and did not give him chances to recover the break.
Patient, the Peque did not lower his arms and little by little he was rediscovering the game that he had shown at the start of the game. The percentage of errors dropped, he was able to play with a little more calm and began to move more easily and hit the ball with greater precision.
In the eighth game, with a drop with a lot of effect that won the applause of all those present, he got the break to be 4-4. And a while later, he got a new break to take over the set.
Peque’s comeback hit his rival hard, who came out to play the last set off, more erratic and almost resigned. The Argentine, with renewed energy and much more involved in the game mentally, dominated at will.
He won five games almost unopposed by the Briton – he took his streak to nine in a row, counting the last of the second set – and led 5-0. In the sixth game, with Evans serving, he couldn’t take advantage of his first match point; but in the second he did not forgive and sealed the victory to get into the top 16 of the tournament for the first time.
In none of his five previous appearances had he been able to make it past the third round. He fell in his second presentation on his debut in 2015, then he scored three losses in a row in the first round (2016, 2017 and 2018) and in 2019, he reached the third instance, in which he fell to Rafael Nadal.
But in this 2021 – in the first edition that takes place in the autumn of the northern hemisphere, since the pandemic forced to move the event from its usual date of March -, it was finally able to overcome that barrier.
His next rival will be the Norwegian Casper Ruud, sixth seed and one of the most successful players of the season, who defeated the South African 6-7 (4-7), 6-4 and 6-4 Lloyd Harris (31°).
In other outstanding matches this Monday, in which the third-round duels of the upper half of the table will be completed, the Russian Daniil Medvedev (top seed) will face the Serbian Filip Krajinovic (27 °); his compatriot Andrey Rublev (4th), to the American Tommy Paul; the Polish Hubert Hurkacz (8 °) to another location, Frances Tiafoe; and the canadian Denis Shapovalov (9 °) into Russian Aslan Karatsev (19°).
The contest, which is played in parallel between the ATP and the WTA, does not have in its current edition its five former champions who are still active: the Swiss Roger Federer, the Spanish Rafael Nadal, the Argentine Juan Martín del Potro and the Austrian Dominic Thiem, all injured, plus Serbian Novak Djokovic, world number one who decided to rest after losing the US Open final last month.
