Shimabukuro’s Stunning Comeback Falls Short: Heartbreak in Qualifying Round

Masaru Shimabukuro

Image provided by tennis365.net The first round of the men’s singles qualifying for the Chengdu Open (China/Chengdu, hard, ATP250) was held on the 17th, with the fifth seed, Shimabukuro Masaru losing to world No. 268 Bai Yang (China) in a 6-1, 2-6, 4-6 upset, failing to advance to the qualifying finals.

Shimabukuro, 27 years old and ranked 165th in the world, won his first title of the season at the Road to the Rolex Shanghai Masters (China/Shanghai, hard, ATP Challenger) and was runner-up at the Guangzhou Huangpu International Tennis Open (China/Guangzhou, hard, ATP Challenger) last week.

Shimabukuro, who has won all three matches against Bayi this season, won points with a high probability of 80% when his first serve went in in the first set of the day. After surviving two break points, he broke twice in the return game to take the lead.

In the second set that followed, Shimabukuro continued to keep his serve from the start, but from the fifth game onwards, he allowed his opponent to win four games in a row, and was caught up at one set all.

In the final set, Shimabukuro broke in the first game, but allowed a break back in the second game. After that, both players continued to hold serve, but in the final tenth game, Shimabukuro lost his second break, and after two hours and one minute of heated battle, he lost all his strength.

With his victory, Bayi will face the winner of the match between fourth seed T. Atmanet (France) and world No. 225 M. Polmans (Australia) in the qualifying final.

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