Narrow defeat for Marcus Daniell in final grand slam

Marcus Daniell and his Mexican partner Miguel Reyes-Varela came agonisingly close to a first-round win at the US Open, but went down 5-7 6-1 7-6(10) to Guido Andreozzi from Argentina and India’s Sriram Balaji.

This was the final grand slam of Daniell’s career and unfortunately, it ended with an incredibly close loss.

After splitting the first two sets, Daniell and Reyes-Varela were in trouble when they were broken at 4-4 in the third.

But with their opponents serving for the match, Daniell and Reyes-Varela broke back, winning the game to love and soon after the match went into a 10-point tiebreak.

Daniell and Reyes-Varela were up 4-2 at the first change of ends, but Reyes-Varela went on to lose both of the points on his serve and the next time they swapped he and Daniell were down 7-5.

Reyes-Varela saved two match points on his serve to take the score to 9-8, then a great return from Daniell on Andreozzi’s serve forced the Argentinian out wide and he couldn’t get the ball back in.

So the scores were locked at 9-9, but on the next point, on Daniell’s serve, Balaji took a huge swing, returning the and it landed in, down the line to give the Argentinian/Indian team their fourth match point and this time they were able to seal the victory.

Daniell plans to stay in the States for the remainder of the year and might play some Challenger tournaments with Finn Reynolds, but he plans to be back in New Zealand for the ASB Classic, which will be his last-ever tournament.