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Jordan Thompson has been left exhausted and amazed after a surreal 3am conclusion to the greatest week of his try-try-and-try-again tennis career.
And the 29-year-old, whose triumph made him one of the oldest first-time singles winners on the ATP Tour, has good reason to believe his sporting life really will take off at 30 after an incredible night of double success in Mexico stretching across three matches and six-and-three-quarter hours.
The stalwart Sydneysider not only won his first ATP singles title in Los Cabos but, after that dizzying moment, then went on to play two more matches alongside Max Purcell deep into Sunday morning to lift his fourth doubles crown too.
Such was the crazy scheduling it meant his double triumph which dragged on for exactly five hours on court didn’t conclude until 2.55am on Sunday (local time) at the end of a week Thompson could only hail as a “miracle”.
He also wrapped up the longest match in tournament history, beating top seed Sascha Zverev after three hours and 40 minutes around 1am on Saturday, meaning he won four matches in the space of an energy-sapping 26 hours.
“It’s so late, time for bed,” Thompson said after winning the doubles alongside Purcell, who also won the Dallas Open together earlier this month.
“It’s nice to finish the week with a win but we’re tired,” Purcell said.
“We’ve gotta get to Acapulco, gotta get some sleep and gotta pack.”
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Fellow Australian Alex de Minaur is the reigning champion at the Mexican Open in Acapulco.
Just a couple of months off turning 30, Thompson joins a list of the top-10 oldest players to win a first tour title.
Among Aussie men, only John Millman, who was 31 and four months when lifting the Astana Open in 2020, was a more venerable first-time champ.
But after defeating world number 12 Casper Ruud in straight sets 6-3, 7-6(7/4) to lift his first singles title in 11 years of trying, Thompson promised he had never given up hope that it would happen.
“A lot of guys go throughout their career without winning a title, or without making a final. Some guys go through their careers even without playing many tournaments, so you can’t get discouraged by not winning a title,” he said.
“It’s incredibly tough. Not many guys do it. I mean, there’s only one winner every week. Usually you lose every single week.
“You can’t get discouraged. You’ve just got to keep working hard and I’m extremely competitive and I just want to play any game really. Whether it’s tennis, cards, marbles, I just want to compete.”
So he was perfectly happy after his singles win to play two matches, both semifinal and final.
First, they beat Ruud and American William Blumberg 7-6(7/1), 6-3 in the semis, and after another short break deep into the early hours defeated Gonzalo Escobar and Aleksandr Nedovyesov 7-5, 7-6(7/2).
It made Thompson the first player to sweep singles and doubles titles at an ATP tournament since Nick Kyrgios at Washington in August 2022, and prompted a tweet of congratulations from his currently injured compatriot.
The stats bore out just what an amazing week Thompson had, not only having to endure his five-hour slog on Saturday straight off the back of his victory over Zverev and his quarterfinal win over American Alex Michelsen from 0-6, 1-4, 15-40 down.
All told, he spent 17 hours and 25 minutes on court during the week in Los Cabos and played six tiebreaks, plus a deciding-set super tiebreak in the doubles, winning all of them.
At a new career-high ranking of 32 in the world — this time last year, he was 93rd — he has become such a stubborn opponent that nobody will fancy playing him.
Thompson also beat Ruud at Wimbledon in 2021 and now has a 2-2 record against the two-time French Open finalist, and has a 2-1 head-to-head record against sixth-ranked Zverev after Los Cabos.
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