Alex Bolt: 'I don't know how I turned the match after that second set'
The 25-year-old Alex Bolt has managed to make a slight progress in the rankings during 2018 but it was enough for a career-high ranking in October, winning 20 Challenger matches this year and playing in two finals. 12 months ago, Bolt had a chance to win the Australian Open Play-off and secure the place in the main draw in Melbourne (he received a wild card anyway) but he was beaten in the title match against Alex de Minaur who went on to dominate in 2018, finishing the year just outside the top-30. A left-hander from Murray Bridge is hoping for something similar at this year's campaign, defeating Akira Santillan 6-2 6-7(6) 6-2 6-0 to advance into the semi-final.
Alex had a 6-4 lead in the second set tie break but he lost four points in a row to drop it 8-6, frustrated a furious about wasting those chances in the best-of-five matches, which is never a good sign. Nonetheless, Bolt recovered instantly, winning 12 of the last 14 games to march on and stay on the title course.
“I don’t really know how I turned it around in the third and fourth sets,” Bolt told tennis.com.au. “I was frustrated that I didn’t convert the two set points … I sort of let all my frustration out in destroying a racquet and just trying to let that go and try and regroup. Fortunately, today it sort of turned out the right way. I got on him early in the third set – broke him first game – and then I sort of got onto a roll. And then, yeah, didn’t look back. That sort of stopped my momentum a little bit, but I tried not to let that affect me and I felt like I controlled the situation pretty well. Towards the end of the season I was playing some really good tennis and I sort of brought that through into my training block and I’ve been training hard, and yeah, I guess I’ve continued that form into the Play-off.
I’ve had two pretty tough matches so far this week even though the scorelines have been pretty comfortably my way. I felt today I played a bit better than I did on Monday, and hopefully I can continue that onto Friday.”
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