Bjorn Phau slashes past Federico Delbonis into second round – Salzburg Indoors 2011 CH
German Bjorn Phau triumphed over the Argentinean Federico Delbonis in straight sets to reach the second round of the Salzburg Indoors 2011, an ATP Challenger Tour event taking place on the indoor hard courts in Salzburg, Austria.
He registered a 6-2, 6-4 score line over the 21-year-old Argentinean on Monday.
32-year-old German veteran, Phau required only seventy-seven minutes earning a straight set victory against Delbonis, ranked twelve places below him in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, on their second meeting.
The German last met Delbonis at the qualifying competition of the Australian Open 2010 where he won convincingly. After earning this success, he not only maintained his winning streak against the Argentinean but also inched towards the $85,000 prize money.
Phau stormed into the Austrian hard courts and got the desiderated break in the opening game. Later, he easily swiped in entire serves after warding off both breakpoints came across. The German converted another breakpoint chance
to his advantage in the fifth game and subsequently clinched the set with a 6-2 score line.
Despite committing more errors and double faults, he clobbered a better first serve share of 67 percent as compared to Delbonis’ 54 percent. Phau also capitalised on half of the four breakpoint opportunities and registered a superb
86 percent win on his first serve share.
The Darmstadt native Phau kept momentum floating in the final set. He quickly bagged entire serves without facing any breakpoint. The German then capitalised on one out of six breakpoint opportunities to his advantage in the fifth
game and clinched the set with a 6-4 win.
He formulated a poor first serve share of 39 percent as opposed to Delbonis’ 69 percent and registered a spectacular 82 percent win on it. The German star then put a cherry on the set by firing four aces from his box of tricks.
A former world number fifty-nine, Phau will next face the winner of the match between fourth seed Italia’s Paolo Lorenzi and Croatian lucky loser Dino Marcan.
Conor Niland of Ireland will be joining the German in the second round. He bombarded massive groundstrokes to reel off last nine games in a row and earned a breadstick and a bagel against Spain’s Ivan Navarro.
The Birmingham-born Niland fended off all four breakpoints came across and capitalised on five out of fourteen breakpoint opportunities to his advantage. He also clobbered a better first serve share of 72 percent as compared to
the Spaniard’s 52 percent and earned a plausible 79 percent win on it.
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