The second round of Australia expanded 2023 to witness the shocks coming from the seed players. After Nadal Rafael was eliminated, two other big names, Taylor Fritz and Alexander Zverev, had to say goodbye to the first Grand Slam of 2023 on Wednesday.
In the second round, Taylor Fritz (9 ATP) encountered host country player Alexei Popyrin (class 113 ATP). Only confronted with people inferior to more than 100 steps in the world chart, the idea of the 8th seed of the tournament will not have trouble entering the third round. But in a day when Popyrin played sublimated, American tennis players were overcome after 5 dramatic sets.
Fritz started relatively hard when they had to rely on the tie-break series to win the first set. However, the next 2 sets witnessed Popyrin's excellent performance when he won the fascist. Losing to set 4 also in a series of tie-breaks, but the host country player showed overwhelming decisive set, thereby winning the final victory with the score of 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 6-7, 6-2.
Immediately after Fritz, it was Alexander Zverev's turn (ranked 13 ATP) in front of a player outside the top 100 world, Michael Mmoh (class 107 ATP). The former number 2 of the German world seemed to have not achieved the best physical condition and performance after the ligament injury in the ankle in France expanded 2022.
Zverev joined the difficulty and only won in Set 1 of the tie-break series with a score of 7-6. In the following sets, the 25-year-old star quickly shortened his breath and Mmoh won 3 sets quickly with the score 4-6, 3-6 and 2-6.
Overcoming Zverev, Michael Mmoh will face compatriots JJ Wolf in the third round.
