Sebastian Ofner suffered a brutal exit from Australian Open qualifying on Wednesday afternoon after he appeared to forget the tournament’s tiebreak rules.
The world No 131 had been closing in on securing a second-round victory against Nishesh Basavareddy during a final set tiebreak.
After going 6-1 up in the decider, the Austrian forced his opponent to erroneously send a forehand over the baseline, giving him a 7-1 lead.
Ofner raised his arms in the air to celebrate, thinking that he had won the match. He then walked towards the net to shake his opponent’s hand. But as he made it past the service line, the chair umpire stopped him in his tracks, reminding him that final set tiebreaks are played to 10 points, not to seven.
Ofner turned around and walked back to his baseline and readied himself to receive service from Basavareddy.
The 20-year-old American, who is ranked No 239 on the ATP Tour, then produced the most incredible comeback, wrestling the lead from Ofner to claim a 4-6 6-4 7-6 (13-11) victory.
After sealing victory, Basavareddy appeared to throw a brutal dig back at Ofner.
He turned to look at his opponent and wrapped both of his hands around his neck, performing a ‘choke’ celebration. Basavareddy then turned to the crowd and screamed wildly after claiming the win.
‘Holy c***, he lost,’ tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg wrote on X.
‘Wildest ride of the Australian Open so far; should make for some viral videos…’
Despite the tense moment, there was no ill feeling between the players, who then shook hands and walked off the court.
‘I knew there was still some time. In a super [match] tiebreak, you always have a chance, so I kept believing,’ Basavareddy told the Australian Open website.
‘I saw him tense up a little bit, but the balls were quite old there, so every rally was a war.’
With a third-round berth on the line, the pair began to throw everything they had at each other, with Basavareddy swiping a booming winner down his right tramline to take the set to 7-2.
The pressure started to mount for Ofner, and it showed. He struck the ball into the net three times to allow his opponent to climb back to 8-7.
Ofner would advance to have two match points, but missed both opportunities, agonisingly overcooking a forehand beyond Basavareddy’s baseline before hooking another groundstroke between the tramlines.
With the tide turning in the American’s favour, Basavareddy then forced Ofner to concede another two errors, before coming to the net to wrap up the tiebreak 13-11 with a cross-court volley.
Ten-point final set tiebreaks came into effect at the Australian Open back in 2019. All four Grand Slams later adopted the ruling in 2022. Any other tiebreak that is not the final one of the match is still played to seven points.
Explaining the reasoning behind why the rule was adopted, Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley said in 2018 that the move was to help produce a greater spectacle at the end of the match, if a final set went to six games all.
‘We went with a 10-point tiebreak at six-all in the final set to ensure fans still get a special finale to these contests, with the longer tiebreak allowing for that one final twist or change of momentum in the contest,’ Tiley said.
‘This longer tiebreak can also lessen some of the serving dominance that can prevail in the shorter tiebreak.’
Basavareddy will now advance to the third round of the men’s qualifiers to take on British star George Loffhagen.
