We understood Kokkinakis was experiencing pain in his arm, but we had no confirmation. Particularly from the main interested party who politely declined our request for an interview when he left the court.
Kokkinakis, the 88th player in the world and Roger Federer’s top scorer when he was no. 1 in the world and no. 7 Andrei Rublev earlier this year was trying to qualify for the quarter-finals. But he impressed no one when he retired on Thursday by hitting errors. I think he was really affected…
With the second round completed, there are only two favorites left, American Dennis Kudla, no. 5, and Alexis Gallarno, no. 7, in the male outline. In the quarter-finals on Friday, Gallarno set up a date with Australian Tristan Scholkat, who knocked out French second seed Arthur Cazaaux.
But the beautiful surprise on Thursday came from Canadian Justin Pulis, who reached the quarter-finals by defeating Marc Lagale from Estonia in sets 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(5). At the age of 21, Pulis, who is pursuing university studies in the United States and has not yet competed in many tournaments with the pros, is making his third visit to Granby and this is of course his best performance with us.
Pulis is also the son of Patricia He, who was ranked No. 28 in the world in the early 1990s, at a time when it was quite the feat for a Canadian to break into the top 100.
“Evil thinker. Music scholar. Hipster-friendly communicator. Bacon geek. Amateur internet enthusiast. Introvert.”