Last week, a 20-year-old Japanese player competed in the Challenger category tournament in Shanghai, where he suffered a sensational defeat in the very first round – losing 6:7(3), 4:6 to Ji Sung Nam (ATP-1038), who is ranked in the second ATP thousand.
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However, what raised suspicions in the tennis community was not the result itself, but how R. Sakamoto suffered the loss.
In the tenth game of the second set, the young player showed no effort to fight at all, and his last shot had nothing to do with tennis – he threw the ball far out of bounds.
After such a scandalous performance by R. Sakamoto, internet users began to speculate whether he might have lost intentionally.
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Just a few weeks ago, the Japanese representative played excellently at the US Open, where he successfully passed three qualifying rounds and reached the second round in the main tournament. There, he only lost after a tough fight to Frances Tiafoe (ATP-12), who eventually advanced all the way to the semifinals.
R. Sakamoto has already lost this year to both Eduard Butvilas and Vilius Gaubas.
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