John Horn
Delray Beach, Florida
Jack Sock finished the 2017 season on a high. Jack Sock has started the 2018 season on a low.
The lows continued on Wednesday night as the No. 1 seed and World No.8 lost his 2nd Round match at the Delray Beach Open 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 to fellow American Reilly Opelka.
After finishing last season by winning the ATP 1000 Paris Masters event, jumping 16 spots in the World Rankings and then reaching the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals in London, it’s been anything but the same to kick off the new year.
The defending champion in Auckland, New Zealand lost his first match of the year there in straight sets. Two weeks later, he was bounced in four sets in the opening round at the Australian Open.
After a month away from the court including missing Davis Cup, Sock managed to win his opening round match in straight sets here in Florida. But after winning the first set he appeared to injure his hip falling in the second game of the second set and it was downhill from there.
Opelka, ranked No 228 in the World, hit a beautiful crosscourt winner to go up 4-2 on the top seed. The shot so good Sock just stood staring at the mark and smiled for a few seconds. Sock was broken at Love two games later double faulting the final point and giving the set to the 20-year old.
The players held serve through the first five games of the final set but a pair of errors from Sock in the sixth game gave Opelka a break and sent a tennis ball out of the stadium via Sock’s racquet.
The defending champ at Delray Beach wasn’t able to recover. Opelka continued to serve big using his 6’11 frame to hold his next service game at Love and then closed out the match shortly thereafter. He had four of his 17 aces in his final two service games.
A big win for Opelka who moves into his first main draw ATP quarter-final. He will face Peter Gojowczyk of Germany. Before this week, Opelka hadn’t played in a main draw ATP match since Montreal in August of last year.
“It’s definitely a great win for me,” Opelka said. “Jack’s a guy I’ve always looked up to, the No. 1 American. I have a lot of respect for him. Definitely a big win, good for my confidence.”
Sock was asked what went wrong on Wednesday night from his perspective. His response “I lost”.
@Sportshorn
