Benjamin Becker upsets Marius Copil in opening round – Salzburg Indoors 2011 CH
German qualifier Benjamin Becker rallied past Marius Copil of Romania in a topsy turvy match at the Salzburg Indoors 2011, an ATP Challenger Tour event taking place at the indoor hard courts in Salzburg, Austria. He registered
a 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 success over the 21-year-old Romanian to secure a second round spot on Wednesday.
World number 315 Becker battled past Romanian, ranked ninety-five spots above him in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, on their first duel. After earning this one hour and forty-eight minutes victory, he took one
step closer to clinch his maiden title of the season.
The Romanian youngster quickly made on the $85,000 track as he saved one out of two breakpoints faced and converted two out of three breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to seal the opener with a 6-3 win.
30-year-old German replied Copil by handing him a breadstick. He hammered angled shots to reel off first three games in a row before the Romanian could hold on. Becker then kept his spirit alive and wiped out last three games as
well. He faced zero breakpoint and capitalised on two out of four breakpoint opportunities to his advantage.
The Merzig native Becker dusted away all four breakpoints came across with his amazing defensive skills and cashed in the only breakpoint opportunity to his advantage in the fifth game, pocketing the decider by winning six games
to four.
Overall, Becker spilled several errors, committed five double faults and clobbered an equal first serve share of 61 percent. However, he registered a magnificent 69 percent win on his first serve share and fired seven ferocious
aces from his box of tricks.
Next up for the German is a local wild card enterer Martin Fischer who shocked sixth seeded Japanese Go Soeda with a breadstick to set-up this clash.
Another German, Dustin Brown will be joining Becker in the second round. He took forty-nine minutes to cripple Russian Konstantin Kravchuk with a breadstick on their first meeting.
26-year-old German warded off both breakpoints faced and capitalised on four out of seven breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to seal the deal with a 6-2, 6-1 score line. He also manipulated a higher first serve share of
66 percent as compared to the Russian’s 60 percent and earned a fabulous 77 percent win on it.
Brown will next face eight seeded Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer who eased past Czech Jan Mertl in straight sets to reach this spot.
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