Australian Open: ‘He’d bore me to death!’ – Mats Wilander on who he would ‘hate to play’ after shock victory

Eurosport expert Mats Wilander has spoken about how he would “hate to play” against Jenson Brooksby after he dumped out second seed Casper Ruud in their second-round match at the Australian Open.

Brooksby repeatedly wore Ruud down in epic rallies with quite outrageous defensive and resilient tennis with the much-fancied Norwegian growing increasingly frustrated by his opponent’s style of play.

The 22-year-old will play fellow American Tommy Paul next after he beat world No. 32 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in five sets, and the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Wilander paid him a huge compliment by saying that he would really hate to play against him if he was still an active tour member.

“He has an unbelievably good attitude, he’s a fighter,” Wilander said on Eurosport’s Australian Open coverage.

“He doesn’t have a big game, maybe with the slower balls the serve is not as big as it usually is so he gets away with not getting as many free points with the serve, but from the baseline, he’s an unbelievable ball striker with a great attitude.

“He is fresh, he is not afraid, and I think we have to watch out. If you are not on your game, I mean, I would hate to play against Brooksby. I mean, I would literally hate to play against Brooksby; he’d bore me to death and that is a problem.”

Tim Henman added: “It was an unbelievable battle from start to finish. He would have liked to have closed it out in three [sets] as he had those three match points at the end of the third set.

“But he showed incredible resilience and resolve to keep fighting and keeping his level into the fourth set, when it would have been very easy for him to doubt himself and say ‘I’ve had my chance, I’m up against the No. 2 player in the world’. But yeah, I think Brooksby deserves a lot of credit for finding a way to get it done in four sets.

“I think Brooksby, it’s not in a bad, negative way, but he is boring in a way. When you’re playing somebody like that, you kind of think, ‘oh, this is all he has?’ and then you get a little bit bored and lose your way. When you are Casper, you have to be so aware and have such a great attitude. Against Brooksby, he’s going to do this to a lot of players.”

Barbara Schett also pitched in: “I think a lot of players underestimate him as his technique is very different to anyone else. He has some great fighting spirit – sometimes he is right in your face.

“He showed some emotions when he didn’t make those three match points in the third set, and I felt he was nearly crying out there. Yeah, when you play against him, I think you have to forget who is standing on the other side and just focus on yourself. Today he was the better player, that’s for sure.”

Brooksby said in his on-court interview after the victory: “First and foremost, Casper is a warrior. I knew it would be a great battle out there. So I was confident with my level and I just had fun competing out there and seeing what could happen.

“I’m just really proud of my mental resolve after the third set battle didn’t go my way [losing three match points] and just turned it around.

“I thought I was playing really strong and I wanted every game not to lose my focus out there.

“Last year, I had Covid the day before I flew out here, but hopefully this is the first of many good years here to come.”

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