Quick and surprising farewell for Diego Schwartzman (13th) at the Australian Open: He said goodbye in the second round after losing to local Christopher O’Connell (175th) 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-4 in just over three hours of play. For the Argentine it is about himThird loss to a player not ranked in the top 100 in the world in the last five Grand Slam tournaments.
Schwartzman didn’t do well on Thursday. His level remained low throughout the match -slow, without acceleration, with little mobility- and his rival showed a superlative tennis to get the best victory of his career; in his house, before his people. With his powerful shots and especially with his one-handed backhand complicated the number one racket in South America. One of the keys was the number of break points saved by O’Connell throughout the match: 6/8. All these nuances left Peque out of the first Major of 2022.
The former Top Ten was never able to beat an Australian in this tournament. To this defeat against O’Connell we must add the one he suffered, due to an injury, against John Millman in 2016, when he had to retire on a stretcher being 2 to 1 in sets.
As in Melbourne Park last year and at the US Open 2021, Schwartzman fell to an opponent located beyond 100th place. In the first instance he did so against the Russian Aslan Karatsev (114th, eventually got used to the Top 20) in the third round in straight sets and then, in New York, against the Dutchman Botic Van de Zandschulp (117°) and octavos the final, the only one to take a set from Daniil Medvedev in that tournament, in five sets.
To find another defeat of this caliber in a Grand Slam, you have to go back to the first round of the 2016 US Open, when he fell against nothing more and nothing less than Juan Martín del Potro (142nd at the time), who had just won the silver medal at the Rio Olympics and, months later, would lift the Davis Cup with Argentina.
