"First win at the US Open feels great" - Sriram Balaji looking to go one match at a time in New York
India's Sriram Balaji scored a career-first US Open main draw win on Wednesday, August 28. He and his Argentine partner Guido Andreozzi scraped through a third-set tiebreak win over New Zealand's Marcus Daniell and Mexico's Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela.
After dropping the first set 5-7, the Indo-Argentine duo won the second set 6-1 and served for the match at 5-4 in the third. However, Daniell and Reyes-Varela broke back to force a deciding set tiebreak and saved four match points before Balaji and Andreozzi finally won 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(12-10).
"Yes, first win at the US Open. It obviously feels great and. We went into the match with a game plan," Sriram Balaji told Sportskeeda after his win. "We played well and I have to give credit to them also because we were serving for the match at 5-4 in the third set and then they came up with a couple of good points and broke us. The momentum shifted completely. But, we just stayed focused and did our thing."
"Missing a couple of match points is obviously not easy" - Sriram Balaji
Sriram Balaji, currently ranked No. 66 in the world, acknowledged that missing three match points in a row at 9-6 in the deciding set tiebreak wasn't easy.
"Missing a couple of match points is obviously not easy. But they're not going to give you the match points like that so we have to earn them. Eventually, we converted from 10-10, the down-the-line return winner and then we finished on my serve. So obviously a good feeling after a close match," Sriram Balaji said in the same interview.
The reward for Balaji and Andreozzi is a second-round clash on Friday, August 30, against eighth seeds Neal Skupski and Michael Venus, both former Grand Slam champions.
"The tournament has just started so we just have to go one match at a time. Next round, we play Neal and Michael. Our coaches have done some homework. We are yet to talk about the match. We still have one more day. So we're going to recover and then and do our homework tomorrow," Balaji added.