2010 Bank Austria Tennis Trophy: Friday’s Preview
As the fifth day of the week dawns in Vienna, five quarterfinal matches will be played in the Wiener Stadthalle. As the seeds take to the courts, decisive results will be seen on the scoreboard.
First matchup of the day is a seeded battle between third seed Nicolas Almagro from Spain and Argentinean eighth seed Juan Ignacio. Having received a bye into the second round, this is the Spaniard’s second match of the event.
Ignacio maintains a 4-1 win loss record having defeated qualifying round finalists and countrymen, Grega Zemlja and Andrej Martin in earlier rounds. Almagro moved into the quarterfinals after a tight win over Colombian Santiago Giraldo on Thursday.
Local favourite and top seed, Jurgen Melzer also takes to the courts as he faces seventh seed German Philipp Kohlschreiber. In a seeded battle that awaits the two professionals on Friday, both players will have to bring their A
games in order to move into the semi finals. Having played thrice before in an ATP event, the pair’s head to head score lies at 3-0 in Kohlschrieber’s favour. Will Kohlschrieber continue to maintain his no loss streak against Melzer or will the local favourite
finally manage a win against the German?
Another local and lucky loser, Andreas Haider-Maurer faces tough odds in his title run as he plays last year finalist and second seed Marin Cilic in the quarterfinal match. Cilic who entered the tournament with the hopes of sailing
into the finals again might prove to be a tough match for the local. However, Maurer has the home court advantage which may count to some degree on the court, even if he ranks currently at 157 in the world rankings (about 140 places below Cilic who currently
ranks at number 14). Having never met before, their head to head score lies at 0-0.
Another player who faces tough odds is unseeded German Michael Berrer as he faces fourth seed Marcos Baghdatis. In the last singles matchup of the day the two battle it out for a spot in the semi finals. 2010 Kremlin Cup runner
up, Baghdatis entered the tournament with high hopes of another title run in Russia. Berrer clearly has odds stacked against him since he faces a seeded player in a quarterfinal match. However, Berrer has had some stroke of good luck since he did depart sixth
seed Guillermo Garcia earlier in the tournament. Will Berrer’s luck against the seeds continue or will he be just another stepping stone in Baghdatis’s second consecutive title run?
It is a tough day for German’s altogether, as the German team of Christopher Kas and Philipp Kohlschrieber faces the second seeded team of Polish Lukasz Kubot and Austrian Oliver Marach. This is the last doubles quarterfinal of
the event. Both the teams enjoyed straight set wins in their first round matches. However the latter is a much stronger coordinated pair since they have career titles to their name. The winner of this match will go on to face the third seeded team of Polish,
Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski.
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