Saturday, 30 April 2011

Belgrade, Munich, Estoril Quarterfinal results

I started a quick summary of the QF results in this post, but it quickly became too long, so it merits its own post, I think. So, what did we have today? Lots of rain, some surprises, and great successes for players in their home tournaments.

Munich
Philipp Petzschner was the first one to go through to the semifinals in Munich, defeating Potito Starace 7-6(3) 7-6(6). Germany will definitely have its own player in the Munich finals, as Florian Mayer was the second player to win QF there - 7-6(4) 3-6 6-4 against Dimitrov, and he'll play against Petzschner in the semis. However, Philipp Kohlschreiber managed to lose 6-4 6-0 (!!!) to Radek Stepanek, so we won't see an all-German final match. In any case, the second semifinal looks promising, Stepanek will play against Davydenko (who beat Marin Cilic) tomorrow.

By the way, I have to brag - I can now spell Petzschner without the need to look up the surname on the ATP site. Can you? :P


Estoril


In Estoril, Juan Martin Del Potro added another win over Robin Soderling to his resume. After winning the first set 6-4, he was down 1-4 in the second when a long rain delay interrupted the match. Returning to the court after a couple of hours, he embarked on a spectacular comeback, broke Soderling's serve two times in a row and won the match 6-4 7-5. In the semis he'll meet Pablo Cuevas who won against Thomaz Bellucci, 6-4 6-2.

The other two QFs in Estoril started late because of the rain delay, were suspended due to darkness, and will be played tomorrow. Kevin Anderson won the first set 7-6(2) over Fernando Verdasco, while Gilles Simon is leading 6-5 (on serve) against Milos Raonic. Will we see a Verdasco-Raonic semifinal, and find out what "real tennis" looks like? ;)

Belgrade
Feliciano Lopez was the first to become a semifinalist in Belgrade today. He had a great run thus far this week, defeating Juan Monaco 6-4 7-5, Fernando Gonzalez 6-4 7-6(5), and today - Albert Montanes, 6-4 6-4. Considering the fact that he's not exactly a clay court specialist (while all of them... are), it's even more impressive. Next he'll be playing against Filippo Volandri, who won his match with Marcel Granollers 6-2 6-4.


Finally, in the last pair of QF in Belgrade, both Serbian players got through to schedule a meeting tomorrow - and so we'll have the pleasure to see Janko Tipsarevic against Novak Djokovic ;)

Janko won his match against Somdev Devvarman 6-3 3-6 6-4 today. He was serving for the match at 5-3, saved 3 breakpoints being 0-40 down, but was broken anyway for 5-4. However, in the next game Devvarman completely choked, more or less, missing some easy shots, and Janko won the game to love, breaking back and winning the match.
Novak scored his 28th straight win today over Blaz Kavcic (6-3 6-2), so he's now 26-0 from the beginning of the season. He either broke Lendl's record, or didn't, depending on when exactly you ask the ATP officials...

Oh, and in case you missed it, there was some wedding today that everybody talked about... Congratulations to William and Kate, I guess :)

(Munich photos from the BMW Open official site, JMDP photo by FRANCISCO LEONG/AFP/Getty Images, Belgrade photos from the Serbia Open facebook page)

3 comments:

  1. Firstly, I want to say that loved your comment about Nole's winning streak and found it very funny. Secondley, I have to ask what did you mean by "real tennis" when you wrote - Will we see a Verdasco-Raonic semifinal, and find out what "real tennis" looks like? ;)

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  2. Verdasco lost to Raonic rwice in a row earlier this year, and he didn't like it: http://sports.yahoo.com/tennis/blog/busted_racquet/post/Verdasco-whines-that-Raonic-s-two-wins-didn-t-co?urn=ten-323464

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  3. Thanks for the link. I get it now, nice!

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