Blaz Kavcic outsmarts Ricardo Mello to make it to the quarter-finals of the Serbia Open
World number 85, Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia qualified for the quarter-finals of the Serbia Open after defeating the 90th ranked Ricardo Mello of Brazil in the second round at Belgrade, Serbia on Wednesday. The unseeded
Slovenian took almost two hours to conclude his straight sets victory 7-5, 6-3, at the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 250 tournament.
An interesting competition was witnessed by the crowd at the Tennis Center Novak complex, with Kavcic dominating most of the time. The Slovenian registered his ninth victory of the running ATP season. He had a close-finished opener
but cruised through the second set with ease to dispense Mello out of the tournament.
It was a serve dominated game, with the two contestants having aggressive game play. Despite of conceding four double faults in the contest, Kavcic nabbed 41 of 56 first serve points to finish as a winner. His serve precision of
64 was slightly lower than his opponent, who had 67 per cent for the match. The Slovenian crafted 11 break opportunities and he cashed in five of them en route to victory, while Mello converted three out of his eight chances in the game.
Both players ignited the opener in a belligerent manner, trying to exert early pressure upon him. Kavcic was the first one to break serve and a series of break points was witnessed thereafter. The Brazilian struck two break points
while Kavcic stung three serve breaks to wrap up the first set at 7-5. A total of 98 points were played in the opener and the Slovenian clinched 54 of them, while Mello closely following him with 44.
The 30-year-old Brazilian veteran failed to take down Kavcic in the next set as well. Mello broke his opponent’s serve once but frittered away the advantage by dropping his serve twice. Kavcic clouted two serve breaks in the second
set and raced way to victory at 6-3. He reeled off 34 of 59 total points being played in the second set and committed just two double faults.
A huge challenge waits for Kavcic in the quarter-final clash, as he will be facing the world number two, Novak Djokovic for a place in the semi-finals. The home favourite Serb is enjoying a 25-match unbeaten streak this year and
dumped the Romanian qualifier, Adrian Ungur in the second round to reach the quarter-final stage.
Talking about his match with Kavcic, Djokovic said, “He beat me while we were 14-year-olds, and it's time for revenge.” The top seed is looking for a title win in-front of his home crowd and needs to go past Kavcic in the round
of eight.
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