By Paul O’Donovan
Mullingar’s Simon Carr lost his opening round match in the Australian Junior Tennis Open when he was defeated by Russian Alexey Zakharov in the early hours of last Sunday morning (Irish time).
Carr, who is 17, was playing in his first major Grand Slam event – the Boys Junior Open – in Melbourne and had been eagerly looking forward to the challenge but on the day he lost out on a score of 7-6, (7-4) 6-3 to his 16 year old opponent.
Carr, who has a ITF World junior ranking of 53 had beaten his Russian opponent, who has a ITF ranking of 64, a few months ago in a junior Grade 3 event in Tunisia, but last Sunday wasn’t Simon’s day.
After a prolonged opening game the match settled down and reached 6-6 but unfortunately Carr lost the tie-break on a score of 7-4.
The Russian then got an early break in the second set and moved into a 3-1 lead.
When trailing 5-3 Carr managed to save several match points but eventually the pressure told and Zakharov won the match.
Speaking after the match on Sunday, Simon’s dad Tommy Carr explained to Topic that despite the defeat the Australian experience should prove invaluable to Simon.
Carr said, “Simon was disappointed with his performance. He fought hard, because the last game went deuce-advantage-deuce a number of times. The whole occasion was an experience. Perhaps he didn’t expect the razamatazz that went with occasion. So it was always going to be an experience, as it was his first one.
Simon knows every game at that level is 50-50 and the last time he played and beat Zakharov was eight months ago, so a lot can happen in that time. He did feel he had a chance of winning, but all the players do at that level. Tennis is the kind of sport that can change on just one point, just one point and it can open up for someone, so tennis is won and lost along very thin margins,” said Tommy.
Looking forward Tommy was hoping Simon would move up to the senior circuit sooner rather than later.
“Simon will have to get another few points in the rankings to qualify for the other Grand Slam events coming up later this year. So he will have to pick a few junior events to collect points and hopefully qualify for the other Grand Slams – the French, US and Wimbledon Junior Opens – but really Simon’s aim is not to be playing the juniors this year but to be playing the senior circuit,” said Tommy.
SIMON WINS DOUBLES MATCH
However, it wasn’t all disappointment for young Carr, the Mullingar man teamed up with his British playing partner Max Stewart to advance to the second round of the Junior Doubles at Melbourne after they defeated the French duo Dan Added and Matteo Martineau in a marathon match that finished 6-3, 1-6, 16-14.
