SA’s Lloyd Harris stuns Thiem for biggest win

South Africa’s Lloyd Harris recorded the biggest win of his career when he beat reigning US Open champion and Dubai top seed Dominic Thiem on Tuesday evening.

It is the first time the rock-solid Harris has beaten a top-10 player. He won 6-3, 6-4 against the Austrian.

The South African qualifier, who recorded his maiden top-20 victory last week over Stan Wawrinka in Doha, continues to hit new heights in the Middle East as he set up a third-round meeting with Serbian 14th seed Filip Krajinovic.

The South African world No 81 was unstoppable on serve, dropping just one point behind his first serve throughout the 72-minute encounter.

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Thiem will skip the upcoming Miami Open and says he needs some time to “regroup” ahead of the clay swing in April.

“I just need to reset myself a little bit to really go fresh into the clay season. Obviously right now I’m in a tough period and just it wouldn’t be the right thing to go to Miami,” explained the world No 4.

“Just make a little reset, regroup and hopefully have a good clay season. After these tough weeks, that’s my main goal now.

“Right now I’m not in the greatest shape in any way.”

Elsewhere, Andrey Rublev added his voice to criticism of the current ATP ranking system with the Russian world No 8 suggesting after winning his opening match in Dubai that it does not work in his favour.

Alexander Zverev, the German world No 7, recently described the revised system as “absurd” because he is ranked lower than Roger Federer even though the Swiss missed an entire year due to knee surgery.

The system was introduced to protect players who are unable to travel and compete because of the coronavirus pandemic.

While players can add points to their tally, they do not drop the points accumulated from the previous season.

“If we would have the normal system, I would be like No 4 in the world I think. So what do you think is better for me, to be No 8 or No 4?” said Rublev when asked if he agreed with Zverev’s statements.

“With the system that we’re having now, for me, it’s much tougher to be No 4, so here is the answer.”

Rublev extended his winning streak at 500-level tournaments to 21 matches after he beat Finnish qualifier Emil Ruusuvuori 6-4, 6-4 in the second round in Dubai.

The second-seeded Russian, who has won his last four events at this level dating back to Hamburg last September, will next tackle American 15th seed Taylor Fritz in the last-16 stage.

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