2010 St. Petersburg Open: Saturday’s Review
Saturday’s end saw this year’s remaining finalists for the St. Petersburg Open. As eight professionals took to the court, decisive battles followed as the players struggled to stay in the title run.
“Seed-killer” Mikhail Kukushkin from Kazakhstan entered the arena first for his match against the Ukrainian Illya Marchenko. Doing away with seeded players like 7th seed French Jeremy Chardy and 3rd seed Serb Janko Tipsarevic earlier in the tournament, Kukushkin has had a good run into the tournament so far. Kukushkin reached top form on Friday when he faced Tipsarevic in their quarterfinal match. In a three set match that followed, Kukushkin managed a tight win by 7-5, 3-6, 6-4. His top form continued on Saturday, when he managed an easy win over the Ukrainian.
Kukushkin took full advantage of the three double faults committed by Marchenko in the first set to take an early lead. Losing only nine points on service, the Kazakh won the first set. Coming into the second set, Marchenko took an early lead but soon fell short giving way to Kukushkin to take the lead and win the second set. With a score of 6-3, 6-4 Kukushkin enjoyed a straight set win over Marchenko. This was the pair’s first meeting at any ATP event match.
World number nine and Russian legend, Mikhail Youzhny met comptraiot Dmitry Tursunov in the second match of the day. Top seed Youzhny had entered the tournament with high hopes of regaining the title that he lifted back in 2004. Even the Motherland wanted a home grown champion. Youzhny maintained excellent form throughout the event and fought his way to the semis. He did away with compatriot Evgeny Donskoy and German Daniel Brands before meeting and defeating Romanian Victor Hanescu in the quarterfinal match.
His match against Tursunov was the longest of the event lasting a full three hours and five minutes. Serving four aces and losing eighteen points on service, Youzhny managed a 7-5 win in the first set. However, wild card entry Tursunov served eight aces in the second set to obtain an easy win of 6-3 over his compatriot. Tursunov’s form continued into the third set as he managed to take the set into a tie breaker. Youzhny served brilliantly in the tie breaker to scrape together a win for him and a spot in the finals. Youzhny meets Kukushkin for the final on Sunday.
The last match of the day was the doubles semi final between the 2nd seeded team of Pakistani Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Indian Rohan Bopanna and the 3rd seeded Slovak team of Filip Polasek and Igor Zelenay. In a seeded battle that followed, both teams went at it neck to neck. Qureshi and Bopanna lost the first set 4-6, but bounced back in the second set winning it 6-3. As the match entered the tie breaker, both teams were racing strong towards the 10 point mark. The score levelled at 8-8, but the Indo Pak Express served superbly to win two consecutive points and cross the 10 point mark winning themselves the match. They go on to face the Italian team of Daniele Bracciali and Potito Starace in the final on Sunday.
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