Darian King defeated in Round 2 of Australian Open qualifiers
Fri, 01/13/2017 - 12:00am
Darian King’s hopes of making it to the main draw of the Australian Open ended yesterday when he was defeated 2-1 by American Denis Kudla in Round two of the qualifiers in Melbourne.
The two players had previously met in the year opening ATP Challenger tournament and King had lost to him there.
In the hard-fought Australian Open qualifier King held the advantage when he managed to break Kudla at the right time and held him off to take the set 6-4.
This meant that Kulda had to win the next set to stay in the best of three match. The two players were evenly matched, but it was Kudla who managed to turn the tables and force a third and deciding set.
With both players breaking each other, two-hour long match went the way of the #18 ranked American as he won 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.