Jack Sock hopes he has silenced some doubters, ready for Dominic Thiem challenge

Former world No. 8 Jack Sock hopes he has silenced a few doubters after making back-to-back second rounds at the Grand Slam level. 

Sock, now ranked at No. 310 in the world, made it past the French Open qualifying before he beat Reilly Opelka in straight sets to advance to the second round.

"I'm kind of ready to reestablish myself out there, let people know that I'm back, I'm feeling good. If I'm playing well and doing the right things, I think I can compete with anyone," Sock said, per Ravi Ubha.

"I think I hopefully silenced a lot of people there, hopefully silenced some people here. I'm not opposed to silencing some haters after the last couple years I've gone through. I've read and seen enough of it, heard enough of it."

Sock ready for the Dominic Thiem challenge 

Sock plays next against No. 3 seed Thiem, who has finished runner-up in each of the past two French Open finals.

"He loves it here. Had some amazing results here. Probably playing the best tennis of his life," Sock said of Thiem. 

"I also think I'm a good player. I will stick to my patterns, stick to my games, hopefully try to dictate some points, control some of the match on my racket. If he's doing that on his side of the court, moving you around, controlling points, it's not going to be a very good day against him. I'll have to do what I can to try to kind of stick to my play and see how it goes."

Meanwhile, qualifier Lorenzo Giustino said beating French Corentin Moutet 0-6, 7-6(7), 7-6(3), 2-6, 18-16 in six hours and five minutes "meant a lot" to him. 

"It means a lot for me. I think I improved a lot in these past two years. I believe in myself that I can make something better than I was before," Giustino said, per the ATP website. "I'm trying to improve and in all the aspects, [the] mental aspect will be for sure one of the thing that I improved the most."

A day earlier, Giustino and his team watched Jurij Rodionov beating Jeremy Chardy 10-8 in the fifth set.

"What's funny is we were watching the match of Rodionov against Chardy and I said, 'No, there is no tie-break in the fifth?'" Giustino recalled. "I said, 'No, way, man.' And so my coaches said, 'You know that you will go like... 12-10 [or] something like that in the fifth.' I always do like this in my matches and look what happened. It's funny."

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/349yEi6