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Jason Kubler reflects on 70-shot rally in Australian Open loss to Karen Khachanov

Australian Jason Kubler won the battle but lost the war in his second-round match-up with 18th-seeded Russian Karen Khachanov at the Australian Open.

The 29-year-old wildcard won a ridiculous 70-shot rally to break his more fancied opponent and stop himself from going two sets to love down on John Cain Arena.

After breaking Khachanov to level the set at 5-5, Kubler rattled off the next two games to win the set, but ultimately lost the match 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 to the US Open semifinalist.

Neither player was particularly aggressive in hunting for a winner during the 90-second rally, making for a taxing, if not particularly dynamic, point that ended with an unfortunate whimper as Kubler's backhand clipped the net cord and dribbled over.

Of the 70 shots, 55 were backhands, leaving just 14 forehands and one serve.

Eight of those backhands were sliced, mostly from Kubler's end, and all but 13 of the groundstrokes went cross-court.

Kubler watched the replay of the rally and said in his post-match press conference, despite winning the point, he was not really in charge of it.

"At the time I was pretty buggered but I watched it and I'm like 'I'm not hitting the ball good at all', I was hitting it so soft," Kubler said.

"I was doing all the running and Karen was the one running me around.

"It was awesome that I ended up winning it.

"I think I had a really long rally in Adelaide against [Tomas Martin] Etcheverry but I ended up losing it, so I saw that everywhere and I didn't really enjoy it too much.

"Super pumped. I don't think I've ever had a rally that long before and I'm definitely going to be sharing it on my Instagram."

ABC/AAP

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