Bernard Tomic prevails over Potito Starace in the second round – BMW Open 2012
Fifth seed, Bernard Tomic of Australia, reached his first ATP World Tour quarter-final on clay court, as he overcame the challenge of world number 77, Potito Starace of Italy, in three sets 6-1, 6-7(4), 6-3 in the second round
at the BMW Open in Munich, Germany on Thursday.
It took the19-year-old two hours and four minutes to win a thrilling contest.
Tomic made a great start, as he snatched breaks in the second and fourth game, holding all of his serve to build a 5-0 lead. Starace avoided more embarrassment by opening his account and reducing the trail to 1-5. Tomic did not
allow the Italian to do anything further, closing it 6-1.
The Australian was outstanding on the serves, putting in 71 percent of the first deliveries and converting 15 of the 20 of them into points in the opening set. The right-hander escaped all the three break risks he came across and
utilised both opportunities he created.
Starace gained an early advantage in the second set, breaking the Australian in the fourth game and consolidating on it to move ahead 4-1. However, Tomic came back, clinching three in a row and evening out the score at 4-4. Both
players held their serve in the following four games to take the score to 6-6, forcing a tie-breaker. Starace snatched a couple of mini-breaks and capitalised on them to seal it 7-6(4).
The Italian was looking to win the contest quickly, as he struck in the very first game of the decider and held his following serve, attaining a 2-0 lead. Though, Starace could not continue in the same manner, losing six of the
next seven games and getting broken twice to go down 3-6.
Tomic assessed, "I played very well in the first set and had chances to be up early in that second set. I think that could have made a difference to not play three sets. He started playing good in the third and I was down a break,
so it was good for me to get back and I played well in the end.”
The Australian added, "My clay-court game has struggled in the past few years. Now, to win back-to-back matches at the same tournament is huge for me so I'm going to keep going and hopefully next round I can win too."
Ranked 33rd in the world, Tomic will lock horns with second seed, Feliciano Lopez, in the quarter-final.
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