One match. Three days. Canada’s Denis Shapovalov survives marathon opener at Wimbledon

The match clock read two hours and 37 minutes.

Don’t you believe it.

In actual fact, 44 hours passed between the time that Denis Shapovalov left Court 16 trailing by a set, tied 2-2 in the second, and when he resurfaced for resumption of his suspended encounter with Radu Albot.

A match spread over three rain-sodden schedule-wrecking days at Wimbledon.

Although the intermittent showers did ease long enough for radical outfit Just Stop Oil — the activist climate dudes who have a tiresome habit of gluing themselves to priceless paintings in museums — to twice disrupt play the All England Club, scattering around jigsaw puzzle pieces and “environmentally-friendly” glitter confetti.

Which calls into question the effectiveness of strict security checks, deep bag probes and such, and the lengthy queues they cause.

Just Stop Oil presumably had no interest in the match between a Canadian and a Moldovan. Not marquee show-stoppy enough.

When their tilt went into hibernation Monday, suspended due to darkness, Shapovalov — at his jittery and reckless edgiest, never a good look — had given his opponent, later also reporters, an earful of dis, accusing Albot of deliberately trying to unsettle him with exaggerated movements in his return positioning. “He’s jumping around like this, I mean it’s a joke, it’s an absolute joke. I’ll start doing the same thing and then we can have a party over here. I mean, that’s not tennis. The sole purpose of this is to distract me, that’s just a hindrance.”

By Wednesday — these two players punted from the schedule by Tuesday’s downpour — the Moldovan qualifier had knocked it off. And Shapovalov had rediscovered his groove in the protracted opening-round match, finally advancing 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2.

The 24-year-old from Richmond Hill, seeded 26th, took some of the unnecessary wallop off his shots, though still giving the Shapo-friendly audience a decent measure of flash, while prevailing with quality and the pedigree expected of a 2021 Wimbledon semifinalist. Albot helped out by double-faulting at set point in the second frame and never giving Shapovalov much trouble thereafter. Serving to stay alive in the fourth, Albot fended off two match points before succumbing on Shapovalov’s third chance, departing meekly on a double-fault.

“It was really windy, waiting the whole day, getting dark, there was a lot of factors,” Shapovalov explained later, to TSN’s Mark Masters, of dropping the first set. “Today, I thought I started a little bit psyched. After I was able to get the second set, I freed up and was able to really play some great tennis.”

Shapovalov was 7-for-16 on break-point chances, with 13 aces and 45 winners.

Turned out for the best, that extended discontinuation.

“It’s definitely not easy playing over three days,” Shapovalov said. “But it was actually not bad for me to play a set and rest a couple of days, for the body. Maybe I needed it.”

A restful interlude as well for knee he injured at Roland Garros and which has continue to bother him, at times forcing Shapovalov to cancel practice. “It’s OK,” he said, of the hinge. “It’s a bit up and down. Hopefully it stays decent and hopefully I can get through the tournament.”

He’ll next face France’s Gregoire Barrere, ranked 49th on the ATP Tour. Shapovalov is ranked 29th.

In women’s action, Richmond Hill’s Carol Zhao, who’d survived three qualifying rounds, fell in her Grand Slam main draw debut to Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch, ousted 1-6, 6-4, 6-2. Mississauga’s Bianca Andreescu had her first-round match with Hungary’s Anna Bondar postponed to Thursday — rain, rain, rain — as did Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino, up against Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu, seeded 29th.

The only major upset on Day 3 was Greece’s Maria Sakkari, eighth seed, crashing out to Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk, though No. 18 Karolina Pliskova being eliminated by underdog qualifier Natalija Stevanovic 6-2, 6-2 was startling.

The most entertaining match of the day was Stefanos Tsitsipas’ roller-coaster five-set win over Dominic Thiem — on a first-to-10 tiebreaker — adding another exclamation mark to their Next Gen rivalry, while Poland’s Iga Swiatek, fresh off her third French Open title, cruised into the third round, dumping Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-2, 6-0.

And for those keeping historical score, defending champion Novak Djokovic became just the third player to win 350 Grand Slam singles matches, seeing off Australian Jordan Thompson 6-3, 7-6 (4), 7-5.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno

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