Two young New Zealanders gained valuable experience in qualifying at the ASB Classic on Saturday, both running into higher-ranked opponents but taking positives from the challenge.<\/p>\n
Anton Shepp was beaten 7-5 6-2 by Germany\u2019s Jan-Lennard Struff, a player ranked 82 in the world, while Isaac Becroft went down 6-3 6-2 to France\u2019s Hugo Gaston, who\u2019s at 94 in the world.<\/p>\n
For Shepp, although he hoped to have won the match, it gave him further belief that he\u2019s not far away from players at the ATP Tour level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was awesome. It was a great experience,\u201d Shepp said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m blessed to have had that opportunity and thank you to everybody that hooked me up with that, it was really cool,\u201d Shepp said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s, obviously top 100 for a reason, but I like to think I\u2019m not that far off. I think that showed that I\u2019m right there at that level and if I can continue to get exposed to that, it\u2019ll help me grow a lot as a tennis player.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being broken early in the match, Shepp responded well, breaking straight back and staying competitive through the opening set.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, you never want to get broken in the first service game. But (breaking back) did give me a lot of confidence and allowed me to sink my teeth into that first set.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shepp arrived in Auckland off the back of an ITF tournament win in his home town of Hamilton and feels that title win and a competitive performance against Struff, shows he\u2019s heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to think that this is the start of many opportunities like this,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to take these opportunities and run with it. Obviously, I would have liked to have had a different result, but I\u2019m proud of how I did out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Becroft\u2019s afternoon against Gaston posed a very different challenge, with the French left-hander offering little rhythm.<\/p>\n
\u201cA tough matchup. A lefty, plays really random, stands wide,\u201d Becroft said. \u201cHe plays unrhythmic tennis and a tough matchup for me. But I\u2019m obviously grateful for the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the straight-sets loss, Becroft was encouraged by how competitive he was early, creating break-point chances in the opening games.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly on I had break points on three of his service games,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you can get those, then the match can flip on its head completely. So I\u2019m glad that at least I was in it at the start.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can get away from you so quickly out there with these guys, they\u2019re so good.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his university Masters degree now complete, Becroft said he is ready to commit fully to the tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll give it a good crack this year. Go all in and see what\u2019s what. Go to Vietnam next week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two young New Zealanders gained valuable experience in qualifying at the ASB Classic on Saturday, both running into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-403543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}