{"id":414645,"date":"2026-01-18T09:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T09:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414645\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T09:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T09:25:12","slug":"australian-open-moutets-bold-serve-choice-stuns-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414645\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open: Moutet’s bold serve choice stuns crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Corentin Moutet sliced in an underarm serve on match point<\/a> and sealed his first-round victory at the Australian Open on Sunday when Tristan Schoolkate floated his forehand return too long.<\/p>\n

The crowd at Kia Arena booed loudly but the No. 32-seeded Moutet didn\u2019t flinch, later saying he did what he needed to do to complete the 6-4, 7-6 (1), 6-3 win.<\/p>\n

He said the choice of serve was more instinctual than planned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did it because I thought it would be … I could win the point,\u201d he said. \u201cI won the point actually. Of course, no disrespect or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The underarm (also known as underhand) serve is within the rules but is rarely used in the highest ranks of men\u2019s tennis, particularly on match point. There\u2019s been some high-profile underarm serves<\/a> in big matches, but this one caught Moutet\u2019s Australian rival off guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to do this, so I thought it was the better option in the moment,\u201d Moutet said.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old Frenchman had struggled at times in the heat on Day 1 of the season-opening major<\/a> and needed a medical timeout in the third set for what appeared to be a leg problem. <\/p>\n

He explained that it was more of a \u201cglobal\u201d issue, saying it was a combination of sickness and soreness and lack of quality sleep over the previous few days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have some kind of pain every day that we have to deal with,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, yeah, I was trying to handle it the best way possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that I did well, you know, proud of myself. It wasn\u2019t easy, obviously, it\u2019s the first match of the year, so it\u2019s always hard.\u201d <\/p>\n

Moutet\u2019s best run in 26 previous major tournaments was a fourth-round finish at the 2024 French Open. His best run in Australia was to the third round last year.<\/p>\n

If he wins his next round and top-ranked Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> advances as expected, the pair could meet in the third round at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n

Moutet was confident he\u2019d be able to overcome the issues that bothered him in the first round when he lines up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really know the most important is to get through it and deal with it in the best way,\u201d he said, \u201cand I can leave it behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

More AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Corentin Moutet sliced in an underarm serve on match point and sealed his first-round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[12083,33424,2073,29384,793,99,428,195193,965],"class_list":["post-414645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australian-open","tag-australian-open-tennis-championships","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-corentin-moutet","tag-general-news","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tristan-schoolkate","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}