Rocha completed an epic comeback against one of the world’s top tennis prospects
Just one day after Nuno Borges made history for Portugal and stunned the tennis world by eliminating the world’s seventh highest-ranking tennis player Casper Ruud (albeit marred by an injury), Henrique Rocha made sure his name won’t be forgotten as well.
The 21-year-old, ranked 200th in the ATP rankings, had to win three qualification matches before even making the main draw of Roland-Garros, his first Grand Slam in his young career. In the first round on Monday, he faced Nikoloz Basilashvili from Georgia (131st), beating him in five sets and qualifying for a second-round match-up against world no.19 Jakub Menšík, the Czech wonderkid and one of the world’s top tennis prospects.
Few would have believed that Rocha would be much of a match for Menšík, who won the first two sets this morning by 6-2 and 6-1 and looked on course to cruise through to the third round. But that is the beauty of sports. The Porto native dug deep, turned the match on its head, and roared back to seal a five-set epic which will go down in Portuguese tennis history, winning the last three sets by 6-4, 6-3 and 6-3.
Portugal’s tennis trailblazers will look to keep the fairytale going in the coming days. Rocha will is set to face Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik (62nd) on Saturday, while Nuno Borges will take on Australia’s Alexei Popyrin (25th) tomorrow morning.
