Fearnley’s progress has been so rapid over the past 15 months, it can be easy to forget how inexperienced he remains at the highest level.<\/p>\n
Little over a year ago, the former US college student was ranked outside of the world’s leading 500 players.<\/p>\n
Since then he has soared up the rankings – cracking the top 50 in June – after a stunning introduction to the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n
Fearnley has a habit of drawing high-profile names early in the Grand Slams and has already played on some of the iconic courts in the game.<\/p>\n
But in recent months his form has been compromised by a nervous tension which is particularly damaging to his serve.<\/p>\n
Asked how he can solve the issue, Fearnley said: “I’m not too sure. I guess it’s helpful to know that even hitting all those double faults I can win the match \u2013 that’s a positive more than anything. <\/p>\n
“There are good days and bad days, but in recent matches the doubles faults have been an issue. <\/p>\n
“I’ll be playing Zverev next on another big court – a high-stakes, high-tense environment and I think putting myself in those situations will help.”<\/p>\n
With Fearnley and Bautista Agut not taking to the court until after 8pm local time, a long night looking inevitable when the British number three finally secured a 62-minute opener.<\/p>\n
When Fearnley used greater variety in the second and third sets – to move the world number 47 around – it reaped rewards.<\/p>\n
Fearnley closed in on a relatively sharpish straight-setter when he broke serve early in the third – only for more double faults to help 37-year-old Bautista Agut extend the contest.<\/p>\n
But he reset admirably in the fourth set, landing more first serves and limiting the double faults, to get over the line.<\/p>\n
Surviving the first round meant Fearnley has now completed a full set of victories at the four Grand Slam tournaments.<\/p>\n
“It was an extremely tough match, I knew Roberto would make me go right to the end,” said Fearnley, who wrapped up victory about 11:15pm local time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fearnley’s progress has been so rapid over the past 15 months, it can be easy to forget how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-95763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}