{"id":408771,"date":"2026-01-14T14:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/408771\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T14:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:00:07","slug":"dont-celebrate-too-soon-ofner-loses-in-australian-open-qualifying-after-thinking-he-won-tiebreaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/408771\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t celebrate too soon. Ofner loses in Australian Open qualifying after thinking he won tiebreaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 A tennis player learned Wednesday not to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DTfA0G2jAwF\/?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:celebrate victory before the match is really won;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">celebrate victory before the match is really won<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Before Sebastian Ofner lost in Australian Open qualifying, the 29-year-old Austrian had raised his arms and walked toward the net after taking a 7-1 lead in the decisive tiebreaker against Nishesh Basavareddy.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The chair umpire sent Ofner back to continue playing the super tiebreaker until he got at least 10 points \u2014 not seven \u2014 and was two points ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Minutes later, <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/video-player#!?origin=L2FvdmlkZW9zP3NlYXJjaD1vZm5lcg%3D%3D&amp;playlistId=1783307017710918987&amp;videoId=6387688881112\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Basavareddy completed a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (11) win;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Basavareddy completed a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (11) win<\/a> \u2014 after Ofner had two match-point chances \u2014 and the 20-year-old American did an apparent choking gesture at the net with both hands on his neck.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw him tense up a little bit,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/articles\/news\/basavareddy-benefits-ofners-scoreboard-stumble\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Basavareddy said;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Basavareddy said<\/a> of Ofner\u2019s reaction to the score mishap, adding \u201cgenerally when that happens, you start overthinking like, \u2018Oh, I thought I already won the match, through to the next round.\u2019 So, yeah, that definitely gave me a little bit of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Basavareddy now faces George Loffhagen of Britain for a place in the main draw first round \u2014 where the American took the first set off Novak Djokovic one year ago.<\/p>\n<p>The 131st-ranked Ofner has never won a main-draw match at the Australian Open, though he reached the fourth round at Roland Garros in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP tennis: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 A tennis player learned Wednesday not to celebrate victory before the match is really&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[2840,7641,49,48,13586,86452,172118,82,593],"class_list":["post-408771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australia","tag-australian-open","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-melbourne","tag-nishesh-basavareddy","tag-sebastian-ofner","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}