Croatian tennis player Dino Prižmić continues his excellent performances at the Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid.
After knocking out the Italian Matteo Berrettini in the first round, Prižmić, 87th in the ATP rankings, defeated the fourth seed and the sixth player in the world, the American Ben Shelton, in the second round after a great fight.
The Croatian player, who won the main tournament through qualifications, beat Shelton 6:4, 6:7 (4), 7:6 (5) in a match that lasted three hours and four minutes.
For Prižmić, this was it first career win against Top 10 players.
The American tennis player arrived in Madrid after winning the title at the ATP 500 tournament in Munich.
A young 20-year-old from Split continues to win at the tournament in Madrid. After defeating the Australian Christopher O’Connell and the Hungarian Zsombor Piros in the qualifiers, he defeated the Italian Matteo Berrettini in the main draw, and the American Shelton, the sixth ranked tennis player in the world, on Friday.
Dino played an almost perfect match in which he did not allow a single break-ball to his favored opponent. On the other hand, our tennis player had as many as six opportunities to take away Shelton’s serve, and he realized the first one in the 10th game of the first set.
The key game of the first set was the tenth, when the Croatian tennis player, leading 5:4, made a break for 6:4 and the lead in the sets.
In the second set, Prižmić is leading 3:2 had three break pointsbut unfortunately he didn’t use them. The American equalized at 3:3, and then dragged the set into the 13th game in which he won 7:4.
Prižmić had two new break points at 3:3 in the decisive third set. Unfortunately, he did not use them again. And the third set went to a tie-break. Prižmić did a “mini break” three times, but Shelton returned three times. However, Dino connected two points at 5:5.
This is far the biggest victory of Prižmić’s careerand the first against Top 10 tennis players in her career. Recently, Prižmić also played at the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells, but lost the 2nd round match to the Frenchman Arthur Fils due to an injury.
In the next round, he will play against the better of the match between the Austrian Sebastian Ofner and the Argentinian Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
A little later, the match of the second round awaits Marin Čilić, who will compete against the Brazilian Joao Fonseca, the 31st tennis player in the world, with whom he has not played until now.
(Hina | Photo: X)
