#2 Rankings do not tell the whole story
Istomin had to play Asia wild card qualifiers to enter the main draw at this year’s Australian Open. He has a sole title in ATP tennis to his name – the Nottingham Open that he won in June 2015.
The Uzbek doesn’t have much to gloat about on his resume. If you go by the 30-year-old’s rank and seeding, he had no chance of beating a virtuoso like Novak Djokovic, that too in his zone of dominance.
However, tennis is a lot more than stats and numbers.
What matters is who turns up on the big day and who manages to get the job done. Istomin not only managed to do that, but he did it in style. It seems like Grand Slam second rounds are special for him - the Uzbekistan Tennis Federation had once bestowed him with a refrigerator as a token of appreciation for the ‘hotshot’ that he hit against Rafael Nadal in the Round 2 of the 2010 Australian Open. Today, they might as well reward him with a remodelled kitchen!
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