After reaching a career-high of world No. 39 in October 2018, Australian tennis player Matthew Ebden was gunning for more breakthroughs in the following season.
But injuries then derailed his campaign, which ended prematurely after he took a few months to recover from a foot injury. The 33-year-old never got a chance to get back on track, as the Covid-19 pandemic threw his plans into disarray as he saw his ranking dip to world No. 316.
Now fit and ready for action, he returned to competitive tennis at the Great Ocean Road Open in Melbourne this month, before competing in the Australian Open, where he and mixed doubles partner Samantha Stosur finished runners-up last Saturday.
The Australian was handed a wild card to play in the Feb 22-28 Singapore Tennis Open and he made it count yesterday by upsetting second seed and compatriot John Millman 6-4, 6-1 in their last-16 match at the OCBC Arena.
"I expected a tough match, he's had a good last few years, so I knew I had to play well," he said. "I played a really good match in terms of putting it on my racket and pulling a lot of the points in my favour."
With the win, Ebden, who converted four of six break points to knock the world No. 39 out of the ATP 250 tournament, took his head-to-head record with Millman to 6-2.
He will face yet another countryman Alexei Popyrin in today's quarter-finals.
Unlike Millman, top seed Adrian Mannarino booked his place in the top eight after defeating Italy's world No. 191 Roberto Marcora 6-3, 7-5.
But the world No. 35 Frenchman was made to work hard, needing some time to adjust to the court conditions in his first match at the Singapore Open after getting a bye into the second round.
Mannarino, 32, said: "The start of the match was not that great, but I was able to be consistent when the big punches were coming."
Moldova's Radu Albot, the competition's sixth seed, also secured his spot in the quarter-finals against Mannarino after a gruelling match against Germany's Yannick Hanfmann that lasted two hours and 42 minutes. World No. 76 Albot eventually beat Hanfmann, ranked 105th in the world, 6-7 (2-7), 7-6 (9-7), 6-3.
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Gone in under 24 hours
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Tickets for the closing stages of the Singapore Tennis Open have sold out in less than a day.
The organisers had announced on Wednesday that the tournament would allow 250 fans per day into the Singapore Sports Hub's OCBC Arena for tomorrow's semi-finals and the finals on Sunday.
Tickets were priced at $61 each.
Holders are advised to arrive at the venue early for their mandatory Antigen Rapid Test (ART), which will take about 30 minutes. They will be allowed entry into the arena only with a valid ticket and a negative test result.
Fans who are unable to secure tickets can continue to tune in to the live coverage of the event on meWatch and catch the finals on Mediacorp Channel 5.
Alternatively, they can also keep up with the matches at Hub.Tennis and beIN Sport.
Rebecca Mah
The other quarter-final match-ups today will pit fourth seed Alexander Bublik against fifth-seeded Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka, while 2014 US Open champion Marin Cilic will face eighth seed Kwon Soon-woo after the South Korean defeated Japan's Yasutaka Uchiyama 6-3, 6-4.
In today's doubles, top-seeded Belgian pair Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen will come up against British duo Luke Bambridge and Dominic Inglot in the semi-finals.
ATP SINGAPORE OPEN
Day 5: StarHub Ch211, 2pm
