Tomas Berdych crashes in straight sets while David Ferrer finishes strongly
Barclays ATP World Tour Finals contender Tomas Berdych crashed out of the China Open at the first hurdle, falling 6-4, 6-4 to Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas on Wednesday. There were no such troubles for fellow London hope David Ferrer, however, with the Spaniard beating Berdych’s countryman Lukas Rosol 7-6(5), 6-2 to progress to the quarter-finals.
Berdych is next in line for a berth at The O2 Arena In London next month and was returning to Beijing having won his first ATP World Tour title of the year in Shenzhen on Monday. Against World No. 37 Cuevas, however, he was unable to back it up.
The Czech No. 1 reached the final in the Chinese capital last year and won the title in 2011 but committed 32 unforced errors to just 16 winners to bow out in his one-hour and 46-minute opener in 2015. He now heads to Shanghai hoping to finish his China swing on a high note.
“I made one tournament title, the other one didn’t go my way,” Berdych said. “(I’m) just going to try to do well in the third one, my last one. It’s always a difficult part of the year. We have to travel a lot. The conditions are always very different, very difficult, week by week here in China. It’s not easy to adjust … It’s the same for all of us just ahead of the last and big tournament.”
Cuevas had only beaten one Top-10 player before – Andy Roddick in the 2011 ATP Miami Masters 1000 – but struck 21 winners to add Berdych to his list. It landed a second-round date with Ivo Karlovic, a 7-5, 7-6(1) winner over Monday’s Shenzhen runner-up Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. The big-serving Croatian added 19 more aces to his career tally to bring him within 16 of equaling countryman Goran Ivanisevic’s record 10,237 aces. The 36 year old won 82 per cent of his first serve points in the one-hour, 34-minute victory.
No. 4 seed Ferrer arrived in Beijing having won his fourth ATP World Tour title of the season in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday. He rallied from 3-5 down in the first set to reel off 10 of the last 13 games against Rosol to book a quarter-final berth after one hour and 25 minutes.
Next up for the 33 year old is Chinese Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu, who continued to make the most of his wild card to upset Milos Raonic’s conqueror Viktor Troicki 6-4, 7-5. The World No. 100 won 80 per cent of his first-serve points and saved two of the three break points he saved.
American Jack Sock scored a 6-3, 6-1 win over Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer to follow Lu into the quarter-finals in just under an hour. Haider-Maurer had upset French No. 8 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the first round but dropped serve four times without bringing up a single break point against the World No. 30.
( Courtesy of the ATP and Original Link – http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/news/beijing-2015-wednesday-berdych-falls-to-cuevas )
Topics: Andreas Haider-Maurer, Andy Roddick, Atp World Tour, Beijing, China Open, David Ferrer, Goran Ivanisevic, Guillermo Garcia Lopez, Ivo Karlovic, jack sock, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Lukas Rosol, Men's tennis, milos raonic, Pablo Cuevas, Sports, Tennis News, Tomas Berdych, Viktor Troicki, Yen Hsun Lu
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