MY ACCOUNT
Hubert Hurkacz sent down 21 aces in his first-round match at Wimbledon, enough to raise €2,100 for the people of Ukraine but not enough to reach the second round.
The seventh seed, who was a semi-finalist at the All England Club last year, promised on the eve of the championships to donate €100 in aid for every one of his aces.
“Hope my serve works well,” Hurkacz wrote on Twitter, and it certainly did across five sets against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Having averaged 11.6 aces per match this season – his 452 the third most on the ATP Tour – Hurkacz had 21 to just three double faults in an effective serving display on Monday.
Unfortunately, Davidovich Fokina was still able to pull off an early upset, narrowly advancing 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 5-7 2-6 7-6 (10-8).
This was the third top-10 win of Davidovich Fokina’s career but the first on grass, with his previous two such victories both coming at the Monte-Carlo Masters (vs Matteo Berrettini in 2021 and versus Novak Djokovic in 2022).
While Hurkacz will not add to his ace tally, John Isner undoubtedly will.
He had a remarkable 54 in his five-set win against Enzo Couacaud – as many as Hurkacz managed across six matches in his 2021 run to the last four.
The last player to record 50 or more aces in a grand slam match had also been Isner, against Steven Johnson at the 2020 US Open.
