Brooksby Returns With Dallas Win Over Seppi
Playing in his first ATP Tour match of the 2022 season, Jenson Brooksby made a winning return with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Andreas Seppi in Dallas on Thursday.
The 2021 ATP Newcomer of the Year missed the Australian swing after a positive COVID-19 test and began his season with a semi-final run at the Columbus Challenger in late January. Armed with a career-high ATP Ranking of World No. 54, the American is seeded fourth at the Dallas Open as he begins to build on his breakout season.
Brooksby won three ATP Challenger Tour titles as he kept a historic pace at that level early in the season, then followed it up with two tour-level semi-finals and his first ATP Tour final in Newport.
Facing Seppi on the Southern Methodist University campus, Brooksby fought hard to end the match in straight sets but could not stop the Italian from holding in a five-deuce game — the longest of the match — to force a decider. Up an early break in the third, the 21-year-old saved a break point at 4-2 to quell the only service danger he faced in the final set.
He advances to face Jordan Thompson in the quarter-finals, after the Aussie upset eighth seed Brandon Nakashima, 7-5, 7-6(1) on Wednesday.
Earlier on Thursday, Canada’s Vasek Pospisil saved a match point to knock off Jurij Rodionov of Austria, 6-7(3), 7-6(6), 6-2, and book a quarter-final matchup with Dallas resident John Isner. After dropping serve in the third game of the match, Pospisil faced only three more break points the rest of the way, all in the second set. He saved all three, including on match point down at 5-6, 30/40 in the second, then took control of the match by jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the decider.
Two more singles matches are on tap for the evening session. Second seed Reilly Opelka will open against Germany’s Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, followed by fifth seed Adrian Mannarino taking on Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka.