Alexander Kudryavstev and Matthias Bachinger reach semifinal at 2011 Guangzhou Challengers
Alexander Kudryavstev of Russia eased past Japanese Tatsuma Ito 6-3, 6-4 to reach the semifinals at Guangzhou ATP Challenger series in China.
Kudryavstev started off in a fine fashion and made the crucial serve breaks early on to take the first set 6-3. The Russian used his powerful serve and strong forehands to great effect and made the challenger run for his money.
The second set tells a similar story, having put his opponent under immense pressure; Kudryavstev took complete advantage of the circumstances and hence broke his opponent to seal the match in two sets.
The Russian tested the Japanese pro in every aspect of the game and had more match winning shots to offer. He serve was on target most of the times and he achieved a better first serve conversion than his Japanese counterpart.
Kudryavstev, who won his first Challenger series in September 2010 at Bangkok, has been enjoying impressive run in the professional circle over the last few months. He reached his career high ATP ranking of world number 141 earlier
this year. Although he is now ranked 144th in the world, the young Russian is hopeful to put up another good performance at Guangzhou to improve his ranking even further. The 25 year old will be taking on Uladzimir Ignatik of Bulgaria in the semifinal
on Saturday.
On the other hand, Tatsuma is disappointed with his effort. Although he has chances in the match, he was unable to convert them since he had lost confidence. He had a successful year 2010 winning the challenger tours at Barisla
and Dunlop to reach his career high of world number 62.
Meanwhile Matthias Bachinger put up an exciting show at the tournament defeating his compatriot Sebastian Rieschick in just over an hour. Bachinger displayed some high quality tennis and dropped only a game to take the match 6-0,
6-1. The German broke his opponent at regular intervals throughout and executed his shots to perfection in a completely one sided affair. His opponent Rieschick was unable to cope with the sudden burst of attack and made critical errors to find himself helpless.
Ranked world number 161, Bachinger had given a consistent performance last season. He managed to win his second ATP Challengers title just a few months back in Loughborough, United Kingdom defeating Frederik Nielsen of Switzerland
in the final. The 23 year old will be certainly eyeing another career triumph after having a troublesome year in 2009 when he was forced to miss several competitions due to an injury. His quarterfinal clash will be against another compatriot Cedrik-Marcel
Stebe who thrashed Dominik Meffert in straight sets.
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