Denis Istomin advances to second round; Florian Mayer retires – Brisbane International 2012
Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan luckily placed a second round berth, courtesy to an injury to fourth seed German, Florian Mayer, during the first round match of Brisbane International tournament. The match was contested on hard courts
in Brisbane, Australia and lasted for almost an hour and 8 minutes before the German injured himself and withdrew from the tournament. The score at that stage was 7-6(5), 2-3 in favour of the underdog Istomin.
Bulk of loses in the recent past, plus the pressure of being an underdog, seemed to have brought the best out of the 25-years-old Istomin. On paper he was no way near the victory his first round impressive performance was rewarded,
certainly not in the manner he would have liked. Injury at the start of the season can be critical and everyone hopes that Mayer will soon recover from the injury and return to the courts shortly.
Mayer seemed a bit worn out at the start of the match and he was never on top of his game. The Uzbek took advantage of this situation and smashed eight aces in the first set, assisting him to hold on all of his serves. No breaks
were seen throughout the contest and crowd witnessed a dry encounter with no flare at all.
Match started with Istomin’s serve and both players continued to hold on their serves. Mayer had an opportunity to break his opponent’s serve on two different occasions during the fifth and seventh game but on both occasions the
inferior ranked youngster managed to fight back and save the break points.
Aces from Istomin’s racquet provided a bit of entertainment to the crowd. Apart from that the match was pretty tamed; score kept ticking over until both players enforced the tie breaker, at the score of six games apiece, in the
first set.
With less concentration and pain in his lower back, Mayer refused to reach out for slightly difficult shots. Crowd sensed an upset as their prolific performer was no way near to top of his game. Istomin capitalized on this crucial
opportunity and clinched the first tie breaker to get one up in the contest.
Mayer received some treatment from his physio and resumed the proceedings. Second set was a complete replication of the first one, except the fourth seed contender’s condition was worsening. He was battling hard to fight against
an injury as well as Istomin’s clever game play. During the sixth game of the set he decided to retire, deciding not to put more pressure onn the injured back.
Isotmin moves into the second round to continue his voyage for the championship title in Brisbane.
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