(MENAFN-Khaleej Times) The second set, much like the first, began steadily until the fourth game, when the world number 29 upped the tempo and consolidated two breaks to progress to the round of 16
Russia’s Dmitry Tursunov serves during his first round match. — Supplied photo
Russian eighth seed Dmitry Tursunov booked a second-round match against either Daniel Brands or Lukas Rosol with a 7-5, 6-1 victory over Slovakian qualifier Lukas Lacko at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships here on Monday.
With Lacko choosing to receive first up, 11 evenly matched games went with serve until – at 6-5 down and 30-30 – Tursunov returned two points with interest to win the opener.
The second set, much like the first, began steadily until the fourth game, when the world number 29 upped the tempo and consolidated two breaks to progress to the round of 16.
“I don’t think it was a beautiful match, especially in the first set,” Tursunov said. “I had quite a few chances to go up two break points, but I was making a lot of errors.
“It’s hard to complain when you win, but there are quite a few things that I could have done better. But, given the circumstances, I would rather play bad and win than play great and lose.
“This just gives me another chance to play better than today (Monday). I’m going to be ‘Mr Positive’ today.’”
Tursunov admitted he found it difficult to acclimatise to the Centre Court conditions in the daytime, when the ball flies through the desert air far quicker than for the matches in the evening session. That furry, luminous green dot will be travelling pretty fast too towards the Moscow-born 31-year-old in his next encounter, with Brands or Rosol adept at heavy hitting it from out of the hand or off of the ground.
“They both serve very big and actually hit pretty big as well,” Tursunov admitted.
“With their type of game, it might be difficult. If the ball goes in, then it goes in pretty fast and it’s going to be pretty hard to get it back. It’s going to be a tough match for sure. It sounds cliché, but that’s what it is. I don’t think there are any easy rounds here.
“There’s definitely going to be a lot of big serving and hitting from either of them. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find a key to break that game down.” Tursunov was joined in the second round by Italy’s Andreas Seppi, who – having exchanged the first two sets with German Florian Mayer – battled back from 4-1 down in the third to prevail 4-6, 6-1, 7-5.
“I was 4-1 down in the third and just tried to keep fighting,” the world number 31 said.
“I haven’t gotten so many matches under my belt this year, so I just tried to stay in the match and he gave me some chances to come back.
“I played a few good games at 4-3 down and was a little bit more aggressive. It was an important win for me for sure.”
Meanwhile, over on Court One, Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut lost just four games on his way to accounting for Romanian qualifier Adrian Ungur 6-1, 6-3.
He will encounter either the reigning DDFTC winner Novak Djokovic or Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin next in the second round.
Bopanna, Qureshi survive scare
DUBAI — The ‘Indo-Pak Express’ of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi came through a match tie-breaker against qualifiers Nikolay Davydenko and Victor Hanescu to seal their place in the men’s doubles quarter-finals on Monday night.
There appeared little danger of an early elimination for the second-seeded team initially as they cruised through the first set 6-1.
However, Davydenko and Hanescu put their prolonged participation in doubt by edging the second 7-5 to force the lottery of a first-to-10-points decider.
There, Bopanna and Qureshi established a commanding lead they just would not relinquish as they closed it out 6-1, 5-7, 1-0 (10-8), despite squandering three of four match points.
Earlier, Juan Martin del Potro and Radek Stepanek knocked out the fourth-seeded pairing of Ivan Dodig and Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 7-5. The service games of Dodig and Stepanek were broken in games two and three respectively before the former was broken again in the sixth game for the Argentine-Czech duo to bank the opener. The same two players were broken once more in the second set, but – just as this match looked to be heading into a tie-break – Del Potro and Stepanek broke Youzhny’s serve for 6-5 and the latter held his nerve on serve thereafter to progress through.
Meanwhile, world number two Novak Djokovic and Spaniard Carlos Gomez-Herrera were defeated 10-5 in a match tie-break to Pole Tomasz Bednarek and Lukas Dlouhy, of the Czech Republic, having lost the first set 7-5, yet taken the second 6-1.
Alex Leach
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