On a remarkable day of Aussie upsets Adam Walton and Kim Birrell recorded the biggest wins of their careers to march into the second round of the French Open with a pair of top 10 scalps. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile Alex de Minaur was handed a walkover into the third round after his would-be Belgian opponent, world No.37 Alexander Blockx, was forced to withdraw due to an ankle sprain. <\/p>\n
Home Hill hero Walton, 27, survived a seesawing five-setter against sixth-seed Daniil Medvedev, rallying from a break down in the fifth to prevail 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.<\/p>\n
Fellow Queenslander Birrell, 28, followed suit just hours later, knocking off in-form fifth-seed Jess Pegula 1-6, 6-3, 6-3. <\/p>\n
Walton had never won a five-set match in Paris before ousting Medvedev on Tuesday, in humid conditions that played perfectly into the Aussie underdog\u2019s hands on Court Suzanne-Lenglen. <\/p>\n
The world No. 97 traded one-sided sets with his Russian rival, who he had previously defeated on a hard court in Cincinnati last year. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had the belief that I could definitely go out there and beat him,\u201d Walton said. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously having done it in Cincinnati was a huge confidence booster. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo get a first top 10 win at a slam is pretty epic.\u201d<\/p>\n
After going down 3-1 in the fifth set Walton survived further break points before rattling off four-straight games to consign Medvedev to his sixth first-round defeat in nine appearances at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if I lose that game to go 4-1 double break I\u2019m probably not a winner today,\u201d Walton said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone can beat anyone on a given day \u2013 for sure it\u2019s a big confidence boost. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think also to do it in a five-set format is harder to beat the top guys so yeah, just really proud of my efforts. <\/p>\n
\u201cI do feel that every time I go back onto the clay I get a little bit more comfortable on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the early hours of Wednesday morning Birrell fought back from a set down to overwhelm world No. 5 and Australian Open semi-finalist Pegula in the first big upset in the women\u2019s draw. <\/p>\n
It was the Gold Coaster\u2019s third career win over a top 10 opponent and first on clay, declaring she felt \u201cinspired\u201d by Walton\u2019s upset earlier in the day. <\/p>\n
Pegula played near-perfect tennis to take the first set in just 24 minutes and was in control after breaking Birrell early in the second.<\/p>\n
But the Aussie broke back with a deft drop shot that brought Court Simonne-Mathieu to its feet and breathed life into her comeback. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad I had the courage to take the opportunity \u2013 I saw that she was quite far back in the court and hit the drop shot, which I think in the past I probably wouldn\u2019t have had the courage to do,\u201d Birrell said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just really proud that I was able to play this well on a surface that doesn\u2019t feel that familiar to me, to be honest.\u201d <\/p>\n
Walton will meet American Zachary Svajda in the second round on Thursday, while Birrell will face Ukrainian Oleksandra Oliynykova. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a remarkable day of Aussie upsets Adam Walton and Kim Birrell recorded the biggest wins of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[339882,70419,2620,212983,339884,64,63,339891,962,68129,94247,339892,339889,64466,1750,339885,339890,339888,339886,93434,72777,235597,70420,24143,339887,339883,85,747,2614,117760,10911,37655],"class_list":["post-697269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-50-jessica-bouzas-maneiro","tag-adam-walton","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-alexandre-muller","tag-american-taylor-townsend","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-wildcard","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-centre-court","tag-championship-points","tag-cold-italian","tag-czech-qualifier","tag-elsa-jacquemot","tag-emma-navarro","tag-fellow-world-number","tag-first-round-opponent","tag-indonesian-janice-tjen","tag-italian-matteo-arnaldi","tag-iva-jovic","tag-marin-cilic","tag-moise-kouame","tag-night-session","tag-roland-garros","tag-rounds-stand","tag-showpiece-stadium","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-win-streak","tag-world-number","tag-world-rankings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697269","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=697269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}