American underdog Steve Johnson has notched up his first top-10 win after stunning Richard Gasquet 7-6(2), 6-2, in the first round of the Aegon Championships.
The match endured a duo of rain delays, with only ten games being played during a six-hour window. Prior to the rain delay, it was the fourth seeded Frenchman who was in control of the match with a 4-0 lead in the first set. Despite the early promise, the lead was squandered as Johnson worked his way back to level 5-5 before the rain started to fall.
Resuming the match, a familiar situation occurred with Gasquet starting off positively before being pegged back by his rival. Johnson saved two break points to force the opening set into a tiebreaker. In the cool and windy conditions, back-to-back Gasquet errors rewarded the world No.39 four set points. The mighty comeback was completed when an ace down the line from the underdog sealed the first set.
It was evident that Johnson’s unexpected triumph aggravated Gasquet, who received a code violation at the start of the second set for racket abuse.
Gasquet had enough of Johnson’s backhand slices haha #Queens pic.twitter.com/nWUflfmuuV
— Parsa (@Parsa_Nemati) 13 June 2016
The mood of the Frenchman deteriorated after a cross-court winner from Johnson secured the early break. Unlike his rival, Johnson was solid on the court and maintained his focus. Securing a double break in the fifth game, there was no chance of the milestone win being squandered as he strolled to one of the biggest wins in his career after 93 minutes of play.
After suffering 13 consecutive losses to top-10 players, Johnson will progress to the second round of the tournament in his debut. It is the first time this year that Gasquet has lost in the first round of an ATP tournament.
