“You can’t win a tournament the first round but you can damn sure lose it” – Tiafoe happy to survive Altmaier in four

American Frances Tiafoe, the No 16 seed, advanced to the second round of the Australian Open by edging out German Daniel Altmaier in a four-set battle at Melbourne Park on Monday

Tiafoe defeated Altmaier 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6) in three hours and 19 minutes.

After storming out to a two sets to love lead, the German with a smooth one-handed backhand reeled in Tiafoe, and nearly pushed the American to a fifth set.

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“I got pretty negative there,” Tiafoe admitted after the match. “But I did a good job holding serve and giving myself chance. I had love-40 once in the fourth, didn’t get it and he kept serving well and getting himself out of trouble. 

“The tiebreak could have gone either way, and I’m just happy I got out of there.  You can’t win a tournament the first round but you can damn sure lose it,  so I’m happy I got out of there and gave myself another chance.”

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He talked about his colorful on-court look after the match as well.

“I went to Nike distro and they said we got something really cool for you for the Australian Open so I saw it and I was like ‘Yeah definitely gonna rock this.’ I could have rocked something more calm, but I was like no, this is definitely me.”

The 17th ranked American, playing in a sleeveless tee this year,will face Chinese qualifier Juncheng Shang next.

Shang became the first male player from his country to win a main draw match at the Australian Open with a four-set win over another German, Oscra Otte.

Australian Open (Grand Slam), other first-round results (Melbourne Park, hard, USD 24,297,942, most recent results first):

• Roberto Carballes Baena vs. Novak Djokovic
• Yu Hsiou Hsu vs. Alex De Minaur
• Juan Pablo Varillas vs. Alexander Zverev
• Denis Kudla vs. Roman Safiullin
• João Sousa vs. Roberto Bautista Agut
• Aleksandar Vukic vs. Brandon Holt
• Enzo Couacaud vs. Hugo Dellien
• Richard Gasquet vs. Ugo Humbert
• Christopher O’Connell vs. Jenson Brooksby
• Thanasi Kokkinakis vs. Fabio Fognini
• Chun-Hsin Tseng vs. Alexei Popyrin
• John Isner vs. Adrian Mannarino
• Tomas Machac vs. Casper Ruud
• Jan-Lennard Struff vs. Tommy Paul
• Matteo Berrettini vs. Andy Murray
• David Goffin vs. Laurent Lokoli
• Ben Shelton vs. Zhizhen Zhang
• Taylor Fritz vs. Nikoloz Basilashvili
• Maxime Cressy vs. Albert Ramos-Vinolas
• Max Purcell vs. Emil Ruusuvuori
• Alejandro Davidovich Fokina vs. Alexander Bublik
• J.J. Wolf vs. Jordan Thompson
• Nicolas Jarry vs. Miomir Kecmanovic
• Pablo Carreno Busta vs. Pedro Cachin
• Filip Krajinovic vs. Holger Rune
• Diego Schwartzman vs. Oleksii Krutykh
• Zizou Bergs vs. Laslo Djere
• Grigor Dimitrov vs. Aslan Karatsev
• Mattia Bellucci vs. Benjamin Bonzi
• Facundo Bagnis vs. Daniel Evans
• Daniel Elahi Galan vs. Jeremy Chardy
• Andrey Rublev vs. Dominic Thiem
• Marcos Giron vs. Daniil Medvedev
• Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Quentin Halys
• Thiago Monteiro vs. Constant Lestienne
• Cameron Norrie vs. Luca Van Assche
• Lorenzo Musetti vs. Lloyd Harris
• Vasek Pospisil vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime
• Yannick Hanfmann vs. Rinky Hijikata
• Alex Molcan vs. Stan Wawrinka
• Federico Coria vs. Marton Fucsovics
• Christopher Eubanks vs. SoonWoo Kwon
• John Millman vs. Marc-Andrea Huesler
• Jaume Munar vs. Dalibor Svrcina
• Jiri Lehecka beat Borna Coric (21): 6-3, 6-3, 6-3
• Lorenzo Sonego vs. Nuno Borges: monday
• Sebastian Baez vs. Jason Kubler: monday
• Ernesto Escobedo vs. Taro Daniel: monday
• Rafael Nadal vs. Jack Draper: monday
• Karen Khachanov (18) beat Bernabe Zapata Miralles: 7-6 (3), 6-2, 6-0
• Mackenzie McDonald beat Brandon Nakashima: 7-6 (5), 7-6 (1), 1-6, 6-7 (10), 6-4
• Tallon Griekspoor beat Pavel Kotov (LL): 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-3
• Denis Shapovalov (20) beat Dusan Lajovic: 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1
• Yoshihito Nishioka (31) beat Mikael Ymer: 6-4, 6-2, 7-5
• Sebastian Korda (29) beat Cristian Garin: 6-4, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2
• Hubert Hurkacz (10) beat Pedro Martinez: 7-6 (1), 6-2, 6-2
• Corentin Moutet beat Yibing Wu (WC): 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5
• Francisco Cerundolo (28) beat Guido Pella: 6-4, 6-4, 6-3
• Jannik Sinner (15) beat Kyle Edmund: 6-4, 6-0, 6-2
• Tomas Martin Etcheverry beat Gregoire Barrere: 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4
• Botic van de Zandschulp (32) beat Ilya Ivashka: 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3
• Yosuke Watanuki (Q) beat Arthur Rinderknech: 6-3, 6-3, 6-2
• Juncheng Shang beat Oscar Otte: 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5