Pierre-Hugues Herbert, May 31, 2021 at Roland-Garros. – Michel Euler / AP / SIPA
The curse of the three first names has struck again. Like his illustrious predecessor Paul-Henri Mathieu (PHM), Pierre-Hugues Herbert (P2H) begins a very commendable conversion from magnificent looser to Roland. Six months later having jostled Zverev until the end of the cold night with his flamboyant attacking game, the Alsatian drove the new terror of the circuit, the Italian Sinner, with match point included. Alas, despite 43 heroic net charges and 58 winning artillery strikes, our man returned home fanny again.
“It’s true that I accumulate them,” Herbert laments. I find that it is not necessarily paid, again. I feel like I have put in the right ingredients, and in the end I find myself a bit like an idiot to have lost against a player who knew how to turn a match difficult to turn. No specific regret on the match point, redacted well as it should on a forehand home candle, but on the other hand what about this improbable defensive lob of Sinner at 4-3 and 15-40 against him in the fourth set?
🎾 The Italian Jannik Sinner snatches the fifth round by winning the fourth set with forceps against Pierre-Hugues Herbert (6-1, 4-6, 6-7, 7-5) #Roland Garros
▶ Follow the match live: https://t.co/q7duus34xb
🔥All matches: https://t.co/2r5Z1AivZz pic.twitter.com/pcn5NeA7Lj– France tv sport (@francetvsport) May 31, 2021
“When I go up after my deep comeback, I tell myself that in the position he is in, he has less than a 5% chance of lobbing in the field. I let her pass because I am convinced that she is going out. Of course if I make this point it’s another story, but I would have to review the images to see if it’s really a mistake on my part or if it’s just an extraordinary blow at a very important ”. A bit of both, surely.
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