Dmitry Tursunov stuns Malek Jaziri in the quarter-finals – Istanbul Challenger 2012 CH
Top seeded, Malek Jaziri, received a shocker at the hands of the Russian Dmitry Tursunov in the quarter-finals of the Istanbul Challenger held at the hard courts of Turkey on Friday. Tursunov summed up his 6-3,
3-6, 6-2 victory in a total of one hour and 46 minutes.
Jaziri was unable to hold their initial serves in the match, but the Russian professional clinched the opportunity and bagged home the initial three games in the series bring the score line to 3-love. The right-hander
Tunisian picked a sloppy start and was unable to dominate his rival even once in the set. Tursunov nudged forward and successfully capitalized the last two games, closing it with a 6-3 score.
The second set completely reversed the winning order. The 28-year-old, Jaziri secured the initial four games in a row and stamped a 4-love lead. Although the Russian senior struggled hard to regain his lost momentum
but he seemed powerless in front of his opponent. The Tunisian professional jumped forward and stole the set with his 6-3 lead.
Jaziri bombarded his rival with three aces but alongside that, he also double faulted twice. He had lower initial accuracy of 64 percent, with 16 of 18 first and three of 10 second points. In contrast to that,
the Russian participant smashed three aces and had a reasonable first serve accuracy of 71 percent. He could merely capitalize 11 of 17 first and one of seven second serve points.
The decider set proved to be tough battle between the two contenders as they struggled hard to clinch home the victory. The 29-year-old Russian despite of his previous loss struggled hard to regain his lost glory
and fortunately drew the first blood. The score line evened out to 2-all in the fourth game but Tursunov adopted a more aggressive stance and broke Jaziri serve in the sixth game. This boosted his moral and he leapt forward to close the set with a 6-2 win.
Tursunov adopted a proactive game plan and fired six aces on his rival. He had a high first serve accuracy of 87 percent, pocketing away 15 of 20 points. In comparison to that, his rival had low first serve precision
of 32 percent with only six of seven points.
In the next round, he will compete against the fourth seeded American Michael Russell.
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