2010 St. Petersburg Open: Highlights from Friday
The Russian tennis player, Mikhail Youzhny breezed into the semi final round of the 2010 St. Petersburg Open Men’s singles competition with a three setter victory over Victor Hanescu of Romania on Friday. The final match score was 6-7(5), 6-3, 7-6(6).
The ten ranked player in the world will improve his ranking to number nine in case of winning the title here in Russia. Mikhail has never made it into the elite eight man field in London; however he can now see the eighth ranked Andy Roddick and world number
seven David Ferrer in his sights.
Mikhail, as a result of this victory, will next take on his compatriot player Dmitry Tursunov, who reached his first semi final round of the season after getting the better of Alexandr Dolgopolov in two sets. The final match score was 6-4, 6-2.
The professional tennis player from Russia underwent his third ankle surgery earlier this season in February and last played in an ATP World Tour final four at Eastbourne back in 2009 during the month of June, where he eventually went on to grab the trophy.
Meanwhile, Mikhail Kukushkin and Illya Marchenko also made their way into the semi final at the 2010 St. Petersburg Open Men’s singles competition on Friday. Both of them had reached their first ATP World tour final four last year at the Kremlin Cup.
Kukushkin prevented a total of eight out of his eleven break point chances to get past his Serbian foe, Janko Tipsarevic in three sets. The final score line was 7-5, 3-6, 6-4. The Ukrainian closed out the battle in two hours and thirty nine minutes.
Tipsarevic, who had ended as a finalist at the UNICEF Open back in June, as a result of this loss has dropped down to a match record of 24-21 on the season. He will play his next tournament in Basel.
The 22 year old Kukushkin, on the other hand, improved his win loss mark to 15-8 on the year and will play Marchenko in the semi final battle. Marchenko reached the final four after brushing aside Benjamin Becker from Germany in three sets with a score line
of 6-4, 2-6, 6-2. The battle was stretched to a time period of one hour and fifty two minutes.
In other action, world number 157, Andreas Haider Maurer also cruised past his second seed foe, Marin Cilic from Croatia to advance into the semi final round of the 2010 Bank Austria Tennis Trophy on Friday.
The lucky loser from Austria, who is competing in his third ATP World Tour tournament of the season, joined the top seed Jurgen Melzer in the final four in Vienna with a two setter victory over the Croatian. The final match score was 7-6(1), 6-4.
"It was great for me; I was a big underdog before the match. I played good from the beginning, served well and am happy to win this match. For sure, this is the biggest victory of my career. Maybe I can make another victory tomorrow to reach my first final.
After I played Muster I felt much better”, said Haider after the match.
He won forty seven percent of his service points and blasted a total of ten aces to get past the Barclays ATP World Tour hopeful Marin in forty six minutes.
Marin, as a result of this loss, has dropped down to 38-20 win loss mark on the season. He started the season brightly with two title victories at the Aircel Chennai Open and PBZ Zagreb Indoors, apart from his Australian Open semi final appearance in Melbourne.
Tags: