Diallo Marks Australian Open Debut with First Five-Set Win

Gabriel Diallo’s first-ever match at the Australian Open was one to remember. His victory over Italy’s Luca Nardi was the first five-set win of the 23-year-old’s career and the longest match win of his career so far at four hours and nine minutes. As a result, the Montrealer is off to the second round in Melbourne in his debut at the year’s first major.
Diallo broke first in four of the five sets but had a difficult time maintaining the leads. As the match went along, the Canadian began to assert himself more and more and by the end, it was one-way traffic as he reached the second round in Melbourne with a 6-7(1), 7-6(3), 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 victory.
The error counts were high for both men of the marathon battle, Diallo had 78 unforced errors while Nardi had 64, but the Canadian did a better job of balancing out with winners, blasting 51 to his opponent’s 33. The two men had a similar number of break point chances, 16 for Diallo and 15 for Nardi, but the Canadian was much more efficient, breaking serve seven times while only being broken four times.
Both men were a bit nervy to start the match and exchanged breaks in the fourth and fifth games as they both struggled with errors on their own serve. After that, they settled in and began trading routine holds all the way to the tiebreak.
There, it was all Nardi as he raced out to a 3-0 lead and never looked back. The Canadian struggled to keep the ball in the court as Nardi easily took a one-set lead.
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Diallo had to battle early in the second set to blunt the Italian’s momentum, saving a couple of break points as he held in a marathon game for 1-1.
Once again, it was the Canadian taking advantage of a sloppy game from his opponent to break first. This time, he capitalized to move ahead 3-2 and consolidated. He eventually served for the set at 5-4 but as he looked to close it out, the forehand abandoned him. Diallo missed four in the game to put the set back on serve.
This time, he was able to get off to a fast start in the tiebreak, racing out to a 5-1 lead. That was more than enough cushion to even the match.
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Set three was a reverse of the previous one, with Nardi breaking early, this time in the opening game, and riding that lead until he served for the set, when he was broken by Diallo. The comeback was short-lived however for the Canadian, as he fell behind love-40 in the following game and the Italian eventually struck a forehand winner to break again.
Nardi nearly let the set slip away again when he failed to convert three set points from 6-5, 40-love up, but Diallo committed back-to-back errors from deuce to go down two sets to one.
Looking to spark a comeback, Diallo came out swinging to start the fourth set. The Canadian won eight of the first nine points to take a quick 2-0 lead. Despite Nardi having a chance to break back in the third game, the Canadian never allowed the Italian back into it like he had in the first two sets. Nardi himself was starting to struggle with errors and Diallo was happy to take advantage, racing out to a 5-0 lead and taking the set in just 32 minutes.
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He then carried the momentum into the decider, breaking in a marathon opening game when Nardi double-faulted on the third break point.
With the lead, Diallo continued to ascend while Nardi faded. The Italian was struggling to keep the ball in play while the Montrealer kept up his onslaught. Diallo never trailed on serve in the final set and added one more break as he needed just 29 minutes to wrap up his first five-set victory.
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Next up for Diallo is a familiar face, 18th seed Karen Khachanov. The pair met twice in 2024, in Montreal and in the final in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with the veteran winning on both occasions.
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