{"id":515743,"date":"2026-01-14T15:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/515743\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T15:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:06:16","slug":"sebastian-ofner-blows-lead-after-early-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/515743\/","title":{"rendered":"Sebastian Ofner blows lead after early celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jan 14, 2026, 06:45 AM ET<\/p>\n<p>MELBOURNE, Australia &#8212; &#8211; A tennis player learned Wednesday not to celebrate victory before the match is really won.<\/p>\n<p>Before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3304\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sebastian Ofner<\/a> lost in Australian Open qualifying, the 29-year-old Austrian had raised his arms and walked toward the net after taking a 7-1 lead in the decisive tiebreaker against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=11083\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nishesh Basavareddy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The chair umpire sent Ofner back to continue playing the super tiebreaker until he got at least 10 points, not seven, and was two points ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Minutes later, Basavareddy <a href=\"https:\/\/ausopen.com\/video-player#!?origin=L2FvdmlkZW9zP3NlYXJjaD1vZm5lcg%3D%3D&amp;playlistId=1783307017710918987&amp;videoId=6387688881112\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">completed a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (11) win<\/a> &#8212; after Ofner had two match-point chances &#8212; and the 20-year-old American did an apparent choking gesture at the net with both hands on his neck.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/47605797\/carlos-alcaraz-aryna-sabalenka-named-top-seeded-players-australian-open\" class=\"img-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768403176_242_r1600386_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;I saw him tense up a little bit,&#8221; Basavareddy said of Ofner&#8217;s reaction to the score mishap, adding &#8220;generally when that happens, you start overthinking like, &#8216;Oh, I thought I already won the match, through to the next round.&#8217; So yeah, that definitely gave me a little bit of hope.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Basavareddy now faces <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3534\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">George Loffhagen<\/a> of Britain for a place in the main draw first round, where the American took the first set off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=296\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Novak Djokovic<\/a> one year ago.<\/p>\n<p>The 131st-ranked Ofner has never won a main-draw match at the Australian Open, though he reached the fourth round at Roland Garros in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan 14, 2026, 06:45 AM ET MELBOURNE, Australia &#8212; &#8211; A tennis player learned Wednesday not to celebrate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":515744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[62,1464,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-515743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115894077734707024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}