Australian Open: Fritz overcomes Acosta in five sets to reach second round despite ankle scare

American Taylor Fritz, the No 12 seed, needed five sets to defeat Argentinian Facundo Diaz Acosta and reach the second round of the Australian Open on Sunday.

The American came from two sets to one down to beat Diaz Acosta 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 and reach the second round.

The American had a scary moment in the second set when he fell and rolled on his ankle, for which he got a medical timeout.

“I think I’m going to have to tape my ankle the rest of the week for sure,” he said afterwards. “But after I got just a couple of minutes to just sit down and, like, when she was taping it, it already started to start feeling better.

“I’m lucky when ankles go that way. My ankles are pretty flexible. I did fully roll it. I heard it pop, and I knew I rolled it. But luckily for me, I’m a little bit more flexible on that side.

“It at first felt pretty bad. I tried to kind of walk to the towel box to see if it would get a little bit better then, and then it didn’t. So I was, like, I need to get this taped and sit down.

“Unfortunate timing. I feel bad for him being that it was right before a break point. I don’t know, there’s not really anything I could do, but I feel a little bit bad about that.”

Fritz, ranked No 12 in the world, will play the winner of the match between Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena and French lucky loser Hugo Gaston next.

Melbourne (Grand Slam), other first-round matches (Melbourne Park, hard, USD 58,910,000):

• Sebastian Baez (26) beat J.J. Wolf: 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, 2-0 ret.
• Jesper De Jong (Q) beat Pedro Cachin: 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4
• Christopher O’Connell beat Cristian Garin: 3-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5
• Tomas Machac beat Shintaro Mochizuki (LL): 7-5, 6-1, 7-5
• Andrey Rublev (5) beat Thiago Seyboth Wild: 7-5, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (6)
• Fabian Marozsan beat Marin Čilić: 6-1, 2-6, 6-2, 7-5
• Francisco Cerundolo (22) beat Dane Sweeny (Q): 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2
• Pavel Kotov beat Arthur Rinderknech: 7-5, 6-1, 6-7 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-3
• Jannik Sinner (4) beat Botic van de Zandschulp: 6-4, 7-5, 6-3
• Matteo Arnaldi beat Adam Walton (WC): 7-6 (5), 6-2, 6-4
• Jaume Munar beat Alexander Shevchenko: 6-3, 6-3, 6-1
• Richard Gasquet vs. Carlos Alcaraz
• Alexander Zverev vs. Dominik Koepfer
• Daniel Evans vs. Lorenzo Sonego
• Sebastian Ofner vs. Thanasi Kokkinakis
• Mackenzie McDonald vs. Juncheng Shang
• Alexander Bublik vs. Sumit Nagal
• Tommy Paul vs. Gregoire Barrere
• Holger Rune vs. Yoshihito Nishioka
• SoonWoo Kwon vs. Lukas Klein
• Marcos Giron vs. Jack Draper
• Max Purcell vs. Mate Valkusz
• Grigor Dimitrov vs. Marton Fucsovics
• Albert Ramos-Vinolas vs. Casper Ruud
• Dusan Lajovic vs. Giulio Zeppieri
• Cameron Norrie vs. Juan Pablo Varillas
• Bernabe Zapata Miralles vs. Jiri Lehecka
• James McCabe vs. Alex Michelsen
• Roman Safiullin vs. Tallon Griekspoor
• Arthur Fils vs. Jiri Vesely
• Laslo Djere vs. Arthur Cazaux
• Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Dominic Thiem
• Alex De Minaur vs. Milos Raonic
• Omar Jasika vs. Hubert Hurkacz
• Rinky Hijikata vs. Jan-Lennard Struff
• Miomir Kecmanovic vs. Yosuke Watanuki
• Alexandre Muller vs. Hugo Grenier
• Zhizhen Zhang vs. Federico Coria
• Ugo Humbert vs. David Goffin
• Maximilian Marterer vs. Nuno Borges
• Christopher Eubanks vs. Taro Daniel
• Daniel Altmaier vs. Karen Khachanov
• Alejandro Tabilo vs. Aleksandar Kovacevic
• Andy Murray vs. Tomas Martin Etcheverry
• Yannick Hanfmann vs. Gael Monfils
• Denis Shapovalov vs. Jakub Mensik
• Aleksandar Vukic vs. Jordan Thompson
• Zizou Bergs vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas
• Constant Lestienne vs. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
• James Duckworth vs. Luca Van Assche
• Roberto Bautista Agut vs. Ben Shelton
• Adrian Mannarino vs. Stan Wawrinka
• Alexei Popyrin vs. Marc Polmans
• Terence Atmane vs. Daniil Medvedev
• Patrick Kypson vs. Emil Ruusuvuori
• Sebastian Korda vs. Vit Kopriva
• Flavio Cobolli vs. Nicolas Jarry
• Lorenzo Musetti vs. Benjamin Bonzi
• Roberto Carballes Baena vs. Hugo Gaston
• Frances Tiafoe vs. Borna Coric
• Novak Djokovic vs. Dino Prizmic
• Quentin Halys vs. Lloyd Harris
• Daniel Elahi Galan vs. Jason Kubler