Tennis

Nishioka Battles into Last 16

AP Photo/Thibault Camus
Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka celebrates winning his third round match of the French Open tennis tournament against Brazil’s Thiago Seyboth Wild at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Saturday, June 3, 2023.

AFP-Jiji

8:00 JST, June 5, 2023

PARIS (AFP-Jiji) — Japanese 27th seed Yoshihito Nishioka edged a dramatic five-set battle with qualifier Thiago Seyboth Wild to reach the French Open fourth round for the first time in his career on Saturday.

Nishioka battled back to win a heated affair 3-6, 7-6 (10-8), 2-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the Paris sunshine.

The 27-year-old will face either Borna Coric or Tomas Martin Etcheverry for a quarterfinal place.

“This is an amazing feeling … I’m not sure who I want to play next round, but hopefully I play my best tennis again and can look forward to the last eight,” said Nishioka, who made the last 16 at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time at the Australian Open earlier this year.

World No. 172 Seyboth Wild, who stunned second seed Daniil Medvedev in the first round, was left to rue three consecutive missed set points in the second-set tiebreak.

The Brazilian led 6-3 in that breaker after a controversial set which saw Nishioka broken after being given a point penalty.

He crossed to the wrong side of the net to angrily dispute a line call that went against him.

Nishioka rallied to win the tiebreak and then fought back again after dropping the third set, racing to victory in a one-sided decider.

“He played amazing and he had a chance to win the second set as well,” Nishioka said. “If he had, maybe it would have been a different match.

“But at 3-6 down in the tie-break, I never gave up and that’s the reason I made the last 16 today.”