Irish at the Australian Open

**HarpoJoyce** · 20/01/2010, 2:32 AM

Isner and Sorensen next up on Court 8 in about 15 mins.
http://sportprovider.blogspot.com/20...nsen-live.html

Edit: Isner broke Sorensen's serve once and raced into 3-0 game lead. Sorensen held his next service game 3-1 Isner.
Edit: Sorensen held his serve to love. 4-2 Isner.
Edit: Sorensen saved two break points on his serve 5-3 Isner.
Edit: Isner wins first set 6-3

**HarpoJoyce** · 20/01/2010, 3:35 AM

Second set.
Sorensen wins another service game to love. Sorensen 3-2 up in 2nd set.
Edit: Both players holding their serve. 5-5. Sorensen was a break-point up in the 8th game but Isner won it.
Edit: 6-6. Tie-break. Isner went a break-point upin the tie-break, lost it on a double-fault. But broke Sorensen again after a rally and Isner held his serve to win the tie-break 7-4.

Isner two sets up. But Sorensen is not far away from him.

**HarpoJoyce** · 20/01/2010, 4:23 AM

Third set.

Games to serve. 2-1 Sorensen still worth a couple of points on Isner's serve.
Edit: Medical Time Out for Isner as his right upper arm is massaged.
Edit: Still the games to serve. 3-3 another game to love for Sorensen.
Edit 4-4 games to serve. Sorensen game to love.
Sorensen doesn't leave the base-line. I think he came into the net once, lost the point. Havn't seen him there since.
Edit; 5-5.

edit.
Medical time out for sorensen now. Twice he was a break-point up and on each occasion he slipped, second time grazing his leg. So he is just attempting to clot the wound. During that game Sorensen put two incredible passing shots beyond Isner but Isner still held serve. 6-5.

Isner takes the third set 7-5 and the Match. Sorensen saved one Match point.

Excellent performance by Sorensen, he was 0-30 up on Isner's serve numerous times but could never make the breakthrough. He was break-point up on only three occasions in the game, two of them in Isner's last service game.

Good start to the year for him.

**weecountyman** · 20/01/2010, 6:14 AM

Well done Sorensen, should push up close to the top 200, but will start next week/week after around 210/220. Conor Niland should be moving up as well so we'll have 2 players well set in the top 250.

**Nagger** · 20/01/2010, 7:08 AM

Well done to Sorensen. Not a bad performace against a top30 player.

**Stuttgart88** · 20/01/2010, 9:47 PM

Great reading about Sorensen senior & Matt Doyle in today's UK papers. I was a ballboy at the Irish Open in Fitzwilliam in 1983(?) and there was an absolutely epic match between Sorensen & Doyle on the indoor courts (due to rain). The final set was about 13-11 I think. The two went on to become great friends, rivals and doubles partners. John McEnroe's brother Mark played in that tournament too. Nowhere near as talented as John, and totally wild - when I was net ballboy he nearly hit me with a serve and I was on the side opposite to where he was serving to! Cool guy though, really made an effort to involve the ball boys off court. God, the memories are flooding back. I was a rubbish tennis player but my older brother's claim to fame was serving an ace against Sorensen, then Irish no. 1, in a Leinster Open game at Templeogue LTC, way way back.

**sheao** · 20/01/2010, 9:48 PM

Great performance and hopefully it will be the beginning of a massive interest in the sport in Ireland. The Irish public have always had an interest in tennis but it's about time that we have repesentation at the grand slam events.

**weecountyman** · 22/01/2010, 6:34 AM

Cue a complete drop in interest in tennis until Wimbledon or some drugs/betting/gender scandal breaks out. Unless you read Paddy Hickey in the Indo it's almost impossible to get any news about Irish tennis. Tennis Ireland is no real help, it is doing relatively good work but seems to work on a premise that only tournament wins are enough to shout about.