Filippo Volandri strains pass Illya Marchenko in the second round of the Serbia Open
World number 80, Filippo Volandri of Italy had to toil for more than two hours before overcoming the special exempt from Ukraine, Illya Marchenko in the second round of the Serbia Open, being played at the Tennis Center Novak complex at Belgrade, Serbia
on Thursday afternoon. The Italian route out his opponent in three sets, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, to book a quarter-final berth at the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 250 event.
It was the fourth tour-level victory for the 29-year-old Italian, who is currently in brilliant form. Volandri was the runner-up at the ATP Challenger Tour event at Napoli last week and continued his magnificent for to outplay the Ukrainian in the second
round at Belgrade. The Italian has reached his first ATP World Tour quarter-final at Belgrade since February 2008, when he played in the semi-finals at Buenos Aires.
Volandri had a brilliant start to the contest and cruised through the opening set to get one up in the match. His game slumped in the following set as Marchenko put up a blistering performance to bounce back heavily in the game. The Ukrainian failed to sustain
his momentum in the decisive set and Volandri bagged victory with his powerful ground strokes to eject him out of the tournament.
The Italian had his impact early on the game and struck a serve break to start with. Marchenko replied with the same to bring him down to level terms again but couldn’t withhold the aggressive Italian for long. Volandri stung two more serve breaks in the
opener and raced away to 6-3 to draw the first blood in the contest.
A huge momentum swing took place in the following set, as Marchenko came out firing at his opponent. He reeled off 11 of 16 first serve points to get past the Italian opponent. Volandri tried to broke his momentum with a break point but four serve breaks
from Marchenko left the Italian with no chance to come back in the second set. The Ukrainian wrapped up the set at 6-1 to bring the contest on event terms.
The Italian regrouped in the final set of the match and took down Marchenko with his attacking manoeuvres. He clouted three serve breaks to outplay Marchenko and seal the contest at 6-3, advancing to the quarter-final draws of the Serbia Open. Volandri will
be taking on Marcel Granollers of Spain in his next encounter to get through to the semis. Granollers made a huge upset at Belgrade when he defeated the second seeded Serb, Viktor Troicki in the second round clash.
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