The Austrian tennis player celebrated too early. Sebastian Ofner already thought he had advanced to the Australian Open qualifying final. After a warning, he finally lost the well-started match.
14.01.2026 13:30
Photo: ČTK / imago sportfotodienst / Juergen Hasenkopf
Sebastian Ofner enjoyed the victory early on.
Ofner felt he was in the final round when he won the seventh point against American Nishesh Basavareddy in a deciding third-set tiebreaker. He started celebrating and was about to walk over to the net to accept the congratulations from his opponent.
But after being warned by the referee, he suddenly realized that he had made a mistake – because in the last game the tiebreaker takes 10 points instead of the usual seven – and hobbled back to the baseline.
After what happened, Ofner’s concentration dropped significantly. Despite being down 1-7, his American opponent sensed an opportunity and began to win one point after another.
Basavareddy won eight of the next nine games before fending off two match points to eventually win the set 13-11 and the match 2-1.
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“I knew I still had a chance. You can always come back in the super tiebreak and I believed in it,” said Basavareddy after the match, who thus reached the final round of qualification and can play for promotion to the main competition.
After winning the winning point, the 20-year-old tennis player celebrated by putting his hand on his neck, which indicated that he was already drowning, and Ofner will probably not forget in the future what the tennis rules are in such a case.
