Karen Khachanov, 20th in the world, almost inflicted a humiliation on the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka (30th) whom he finally beat 6-0, 6-0, 7-6 (7/5) after winning the first fourteen games on Sunday in Round of 16 of the Australian Open in Melbourne.
“
During the first two sets, I didn't understand what was going on.
And it's always a bit complicated mentally when the match is too easy.
The third set was also very complicated but I played very well
,” commented the 26-year-old Russian.
Former No. 8 at the ATP, he played the semi-finals of the last US Open but had never passed the third round in Melbourne.
For his first Australian quarter, he will face the Pole Hubert Hurkacz (11th) or the American Sebastian Korda (31st) on Tuesday.
At 6-0, 4-0, completely overwhelmed Nishioka smashed his racquet to the ground.
But the change of tool did not change anything: he conceded another 6-0 having scored in all and for all only two points in the round!
He had already registered only eleven in the first...
And we seemed to be heading for an extremely rare triple 6-0 (five only in the history of Grand Slam tournaments, the last in 1993 at Roland-Garros in favor of Sergi Bruguera against Thierry Champion) when the Japanese managed the broke to make it 2-1 in the third set and then pushed the Russian to the tie-break.
