Cerretani/ Mertinak breeze past Kontinen/ Nieminen in semi final – IPP Open 2011
Top seeded American James Cerretani with Slovakian Michal Mertinak blasted away Finnish Micke Kontinen with Timo Nieminen in the semi final of the IPP Open 2011.
The two crews took up the fixture on indoor hard courts at Tali in Helsinki, Finland on Friday the 25th of November 2011. The top seeded players screwed the Finnish couple by ousting them in straight sets of 7-6(2),
6-2.
Top seeded duo kicked-off the game in a fantastic fashion as they hit the fourth gear upfront winning first three games that included a break in the second game. The score was 3-0 at that stage and it seemed as if the top seeded
duo mentally dismantled the Finnish partners in the opening set with a quick succession.
Finnish duo made a remarkable comeback as they broke back in the fifth game and levelled the score at three games each. The crowd loved every bit of this eye-startling encounter. Both teams exchanged breaks in the next two games
and the score was evenly poised at four games each.
There was no further drama in the upcoming games and both teams held their serves to take the score to 6-6 and enforce a tie-breaker to decide the set. No one thought that Finnish team will survive such long after such a sub-standard
start.
The top seeded duo held their nerves and played a very calm game through the tie-breaker that helped them put pressure on their opponents. It was never easy for the Finnish team to end the first set with a victory to their name
because they stuttered during the tie-break and their co-ordination was completely lost.
Moreover they were a set down, as the pressure had built up for the Finnish players. They were unable to take benefit of familiar conditions, local crowd and couldn’t make an impact during the second set.
American/Slovak duo cruised past their rivals in the second set having won the first four games with two successful breaks to their name. There was no way back from that stage for the local duo that could just only register two
successful games on their serves and lost the match.
The crowd was left feeling dejected by the second round performance from their local heroes that didn’t try their level best and looked rusty but they were happy that they saw one of the best sets of the tournament before that.
Top seeded duo will take on the team of Martin Emmrich and Andreas Siljestrom in the grand finale of the tournament.
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