Max Purcell’s hopes of inflicting an early sensation at Wimbledon have rapidly evaporated on the opening morning of the Championships.
Even because the Australian contingent have been nonetheless coming to phrases with information of Nick Kyrgios’ late eve-of-tournament withdrawal, the Wimbledon males’s doubles champion Purcell was swiftly blown away on No.3 courtroom by No.7 seed Andrey Rublev on Monday.
Purcell had talked up his possibilities of an upset, adamant that he wasn’t right here to “make up the numbers”, however aside from one purple patch at first of the second set, he was outplayed by the Russian 6-3 7-5 6-4 in simply over an hour and a half.
In a rare turnaround as Purcell, the Australian No.3, led 5-2 within the second set and appeared poised to degree the match, the Sydneysider then misplaced the plot, surrendering six video games in a row in a sequence that included dropping 19 consecutive factors.
The transformation had been placing because the 25-year-old Purcell had performed some sensible tennis within the second set, upping his degree with some glorious slicing and dicing, incisive volleying and the odd beautiful lob.
He even threw in an underarm serve – quite unsuccessfully – as the variability in his sport appeared to rattle Rublev, who began chuntering to himself unhappily.
However when the sport was performed on the Russian’s phrases from the backcourt, his energy and accuracy at all times had Purcell on the backfoot.
Purcell, who received the lads’s doubles with Matt Ebden final yr, will now flip his attentions to that occasion, taking part in alongside Jordan Thompson, who was additionally in singles motion on Monday.