Antonio Veic ousts Javier Marti; moves into main draw – SkiStar Swedish Open 2011
Monday in Bastad, Sweden witnessed four immensely thrilling qualifying finals of the SkiStar Swedish Open 2011. In the adrenaline charged match between the Croatian Antonio Veic and Spaniard Javier Marti, Veic secured a decisive
2-0 win over his opponent and is now securely headed to the main draws of the tournament.
The fourth seed Croatian is a force to be reckoned with. Currently ranked 196 in the world, Veic is a rising star in tennis. Earlier this year, Veic easily qualified to enter the main draws of the French Open and by defeating the
likes of the agile Nikolay Davydenko, Veic managed to reach the third round of the tournament. However, his French outing came to an end at the hands of the World No.2 Rafael Nadal. No mean feat indeed. Veic’s swift progress to the main draws of the Swedish
Open, without losing a single set is a testament to his ability.
Veic and the fifth seed Marti have played superbly in their previous matches in the Qualifying Singles. Marti last met the unseeded Swede Pablo Figueroa and won a 6-4, 6-4 victory. Veic also secured his victory by scoring 6-2,
6-1 against another Swede Fred Simonsson, much to the dismay of the home crowd.
In the match, Antonio Veic easily overpowered his opponent by bagging two aces against Marti’s one. However, the error prone Marti lost the set and eventually the match because of the sheer number of double faults that he accumulated.
Marti had a staggering four double faults while the adroit Veic had none. It must also be pointed out that despite Veic’s impeccable game; his dismal par serve accuracy needs improvement. He had a first serve accuracy of 52% and managed to 15 of the 22 points
on his serve. Marti also won 15 points but out of his 27. The first set ended 6-4 in Veic’s favour.
Marti was unable to recover from the severe blow in the first set and was eventually dismissed by Veic, who won the second set too. The 6-4 win in this set went in Veic’s way because of his sustained performance against the Spanish
contender. In this set too, Veic performed poorly when serving and had a drab 59% first serve accuracy. Marti’s serve accuracy actually improved in this set rising to 78% from the 69% in the previous set. However his inability at effectively utilizing these
serves eventually lost him the match. He only managed to get 14 of the 28 points from his serves.
Veic’s win means that he will now battle the fourth seed Guillermo Olaso in the first round of the tournament.
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