Tennis Prose




Feb/23

15

Delray Beach Miracle – the greatest upset in ATP history?

Move over Istomin vs Djokovic, Donskoy vs Federer, Doohan vs Becker, Soderling vs Nadal…

Matija Pecotic is 33 years old and had never even played an ATP main draw main tour match before yesterday. He’s never been ranked inside the top 200 and his current ranking is 784. He’s not even a full time pro player now – the Harvard and Princeton graduate has a finance job in South Florida.

Yet somehow, the stars aligned and Pecotic created a tennis miracle and defeated a former elite Grand Slam champion last night in Delray Beach, slaying Jack Sock 46 62 62 on stadium court.

The Pecotic dream ride is worthy of a Hollywood underdog movie like Rudy or Rocky. Somehow Pecotic found himself entered into Delray Beach qualifying as an alternate. Last week he lost a pre-qualifier in Delray and returned to pick up some racquets that were re-strung and he learned by chance that he still had a chance to get into the quali draw as an alternate if another player pulled out with an injury. As fate would have it, Pecotic got into the quali draw and defeated two high profile Americans both desperate to regain their lost statuses. Pecotic beat Stefan Kozlov and former two-time Australian Open quarterfinalist Tennys Sandgren.

That put Pecotic in the main draw where he drew wildcard Jack Sock, also desperate to regain his lost position in the top 10 (Sock is currently ranked 130 and has not been ranked in the top 100 since 2018).

Wearing white shorts and a pink/light purple Nike shirt and light blue Nike shoes with a backwards white Nike and what looked like an old Babolat Pure Drive racquet (the one Andy Roddick used many years ago) Pecotic fell behind 0-4 to Sock and seemed enroute to a blowout loss but instead he turned the tables and issued Sock arguably the most embarrassing and humiliating loss of his ATP career.

“I certainly didn’t expect to win, but certainly didn’t come into the match thinking that I’m definitely going to lose,” said Pecotic after. “You’ve got to be realistic. This is a former Top 10 guy with an incredible amount of tennis experience, with a huge serve. He came out serving 134 on the first serve. It would be arrogant to think that I’m going to come out and expect to win. But I certainly figured if I could sink my teeth into the match and work on the two or three patterns that I prepared before, that I’m going to have a chance. And then let’s see… if I was going to fall under pressure or not be able to serve it out at some point. But I didn’t and I got the win.”

Match point was Sock serving at 30-40. It was a simple finish – Pecotic returned with his lefty two handed backhand to Sock’s backhand, the tight reply which sailed a foot long. Pecotic smiled at his own miracle, and raised his hands up like to say, “I don’t know how I won this match, I really don’t!””

Pecotic’s player box contained his financial job boss and former top ten pro Dominik Hrbaty.

Pecotic may be a part time ATP player but he looks like a seasoned veteran, though his only other tournament this year was a first round loss in Cleveland after qualifying (lost to Zachary Svajda 62 61). He has a smooth lefty game, perfect technical form and the ability to suddenly create extra pace out of nowhere. It’s shocking this guy has never won an ATP main tour match before last night, though he did have a spot on Croatia’s United Cup team in January.

In the next round Pecotic will play another veteran American Marcos Giron, who upset Ben Shelton 64 64.

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