\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Argentine tennis star Sebasti\u00e1n B\u00e1ez (ranked 36 in ATP singles) beat Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (61) on Monday, taking the total number of Argentines that made it to the 2026 Australian Open second round to five.<\/p>\n
The two battled for over three hours in the scorching Melbourne summer sun, as B\u00e1ez took the win 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3 and stretched his record for the year to eight wins and just one defeat.<\/p>\n
The duel was set up to be a grind for B\u00e1ez, with Mpetshi Perricard being one of the ATP\u2019s top servers, as his 246 km\/h 2025 record as the second fastest serve in Wimbledon history shows. However, the Argentine player broke the Frenchman\u2019s serve early both in the first and second sets and raced to a two sets to none lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The world no.61 rallied in the third set, but it all looked set for a B\u00e1ez win in the fourth when he got a 5-2 lead. However, it all came crashing down, as the Argentine player lost five games in a row to lose 5-7 and allow the Frenchman a chance to win in the fifth.<\/p>\n
It was the height of the drama. As he had done in the first couple of sets, B\u00e1ez took an early lead and physical issues stopped Mpetshi Perricard from forcing his way back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the chance to wrap it up before but I wasn\u2019t able to take it,\u201d the Argentine player told the press after the match. \u201cHe did a lot of things right too. I got a break up in the fifth when I didn\u2019t expect it, and I was able to take that chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
B\u00e1ez said he was \u201chappy to be able to see through a tough match.\u201d This is the first Grand Slam win for the Buenos Aires Province native since his 2024 US Open first round victory, having gone winless at majors in what was a difficult 2025 for him.<\/p>\n
Like countryman Tom\u00e1s Etcheverry, he admitted leaning on the Argentine fans at Australia to push forward.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The support] was crazy. It\u2019s incredible they\u2019ve come all the way here to support us like this,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re away from home, you sometimes miss that support a lot, and you don\u2019t always get it at tournaments. I\u2019m very grateful to all the Argentinians who were supporting me today. It\u2019s in difficult moments that you feel the most what it means to represent Argentina.\u201d<\/p>\n
A good start It\u2019s been an impressive start for B\u00e1ez in 2026. The former world No.18 went unbeaten while representing Argentina in the 2026 United Cup, where he beat world No.9 Taylor Fritz from the U.S. After that, he reached the Auckland Open final, beating another high-ranking U.S. player in world no.7 Ben Shelton, before getting his first loss of the season against Czech Jabuk Mensik (17).<\/p>\n
Baez is set to face Argentine-born Italian Luciano Darderi (25) \u2014 who beat Chile\u2019s Cristi\u00e1n Gar\u00edn (82) por 7-6(5), 7-5. 7-6(3) \u2014\u00a0 for a spot in the third round.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He joins the other Argentines set to play in the second round starting Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thiago Tirante (103), will face off against U.S. player Tommy Paul (20), Tomas Etcheverry (61), will match up against Brit Arthur Fery (185), Francisco Cer\u00fandolo (20), is set to battle Bosnian Damir Dzumhur (66) and Francisco Comesa\u00f1a (68), will face another U.S. native, Frances Tiafoe (34).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Argentine tennis star Sebasti\u00e1n B\u00e1ez (ranked 36 in ATP singles) beat Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (61) on Monday, taking the total number of Argentines that made it to the 2026 Australian Open second round to five. The two battled for over three hours in the scorching Melbourne summer sun, as B\u00e1ez took the win 6-4, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":28039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7837,7839,67,5570],"tags":[7833,7835,1369,5568],"class_list":["post-28038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australian-open","category-sebastian-baez","category-sports","category-tennis","tag-australian-open","tag-sebastian-baez","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}