It was a match that began on a different court, and on a different day, and saw the victor waste 12 separate break points in the first four sets.
None of that mattered.
Alexei Popyrin became the Australian Open’s new late-night king on Wednesday morning, defeating Taiwan’s Chun-Hsin ‘Jason’ Tseng 4-6 7-6(5) 6-7(5) 7-6(4) 6-1 in a match that finished at 2:02am AEDT.
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It wasn’t Popyrin’s biggest win at his home grand slam, nor his first five-set triumph – that was two years ago when he stunned No.13 seed David Goffin.
But for the fourth time the Sydney-sider is through to the second round at Melbourne Park and, as usual, he had to do it the hard way.
For a start the match was heavily delayed, first by the intense heat which saw play on all outside courts stop for three hours in the afternoon, then by the rain which forced intermittent stoppages during the night session.
Popyrin’s match should’ve started closer to 4pm on Court 3, if all had gone to plan, but instead he was moved to the usually-not-seen fifth match on John Cain Arena following compatriot Alex de Minaur’s easy win over another Taiwanese player, Yu Hsiou Hsu.
The match began at 9:37pm and it was immediately clear neither man planned on being broken very often.
Tseng broke Popyrin just once, in the first set which allowed him to claim it without a tiebreak; Popyrin couldn’t break Tseng until the deciding set, first for 2-0 and then for 5-1.
Otherwise it was a match of tiny margins, wtith the second and fourth set tiebreaks going Popyrin’s way.
For his trouble Popyrin will face American star Taylor Fritz in the second round on Thursday.
The late finish wasn’t quite as bad as last year’s record, when Adrian Mannarino got past Aslan Karatsev at 2:33am.
Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis’ five-set match in 2008 finished at 4:34am.
