Ex-top 10 tennis star beaten by part-time player who skipped work

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Matija Pecotic said he is going to “have to ask for another day off” from his full-time job in finance after a shock win against Jack Sock at the Delray Beach Open. The 33-year-old, who works as a director at a real estate investment firm, plays tennis part-time and beat the American star 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 to set up a tie with Marcos Giron in the round of 16 in Florida.

The Princeton and Harvard graduate has become one of the stories of the season on the ATP Tour by qualifying for his tour-level debut at the age of 33. The Croatian hit ten aces and 30 winners in a first-round match that lasted two hours and ten minutes.

After his sensational win against Sock – a winner of four major doubles titles – Pecotic joked: “I had to leave work early, my boss let me off.”

And his boss watched on from his player box as the world number 784 – who reached a career-high 206 in 2015 – beat Sock, who is 143 in the men’s rankings.

Pecotic added: “You’ve got to be realistic. This is a former top 10 guy with an incredible amount of tennis experience and a huge serve. He came out serving 134mph on the first serve. It would be arrogant to think I’m going to come out and expect to win.

“But I figured if I could sink my teeth into the match and work on the two or three patterns I prepared before, that I’m going to have a chance.”

Pecotic, who will play American world No 55 Marcos Giron in the last 16, came through two rounds of qualifying to reach the main draw, but only found out he was competing 30 minutes before the first qualifier after a player pulled out.

Ahead of the tournament, Pecotic said that he typically works from 9am until 6pm and tries to play tennis before work.

He revealed: “I absolutely love this game and I know it’s not forever and I’m 33. I try to maximise each day. I try to train every morning if I can, five, six times a week.

“Sometimes I train with my boss, who is 70 years old. This week I trained with a guy who is probably in his late 50s. But you find creative ways to work around it.”

Pecotic’s tennis career was halted just before the 2016 Australian Open when he was bed-ridden for eight months after picking up an infection following stomach surgery.

However, his love for the sport was rekindled while studying at Harvard Business School.

After graduating he gave himself one year to to make his mark in professional tennis, but the Covid-19 pandemic ended his dreams.

Those dreams now, though, look to be well on the horizon if, of course, the results continue to go his way.

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