New Zealand’s Artem Sitak reviews his 2nd-round battle alongside Divij Sharan against 10th seeds Mate Pavic and Bruno Soares at the 2020 Australian Open and previews their 4-tournament February ATP swing.
Divij Sharan & Artem Sitak · Men’s Doubles Round 2
Round 2 Run| Round | Match | Score | Result | Match Breakdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R2 | Divij Sharan (IND, 50) / Artem Sitak (NZL, 62) l. (10)Mate Pavic (CRO) / Bruno Soares (BRA) | 6-7(2), 3-6 | LOST | Held serve throughout Set 1 before tiebreak |
“Divij and I have 4 ATP events lined up together in February starting in Pune, New York, Delray Beach, and Acapulco — hopefully we can do some real damage.”
— Artem Sitak · Melbourne Park ExclusiveArtem Sitak, Divij Sharan’s doubles partner, shares his thoughts on their second round loss and whats coming up in terms of schedule.
The opponents did their homework well and did a few things differently compared to how they played against us at the Paris Masters last year. They picked their moments and executed really well. The tie-break was a bit disappointing. I started with a double fault (which I barely missed) and that set the tone for the tie break. I managed a good return winner but it was not enough as they served big and closed it out easily.
We should have stayed strong and not give the break away easily in the second set. They hit some big shots and we had to come up with something bigger than that. We picked up the energy at the end and played some great points in the last game but they managed to serve it out well.
The big difference in the match was they served big on key points. We didn’t have that many looks into their service games.
Overall it has been a positive tourney and we are working on good things with Divij. If we keep on improving, we can get better and better from now on.
When I walked onto the court, I was a bit surprised myself. I was like wow, what’s going on here! This is great though – that people do appreciate and watch doubles. They wanted to see a good doubles match and I hope we delivered.
I am reaching Pune on Wednesday afternoon. We have 4 ATP events lined up in February and hopefully we can do some damage.
We managed it well. We did a lot of training with the indoors, outside with the wind and then with the heat – so we were prepared. We played a good first round and we were prepared for today. It was a good level, unfortunately they were a bit better today.