Florian Mayer washouts Marsel Ilhan in straight sets – German Tennis Championships 2011
The fourth match of the International German Open 2011 was rivalled between Turkish international Marsel Ilhan and the German International Florian Mayer with the latter securing a straight sets victory. The fixture was organized
at the Rothenbaum Tennis Court, the largest there is in Germany. Clay court was used as it was a clay event.
Historically, both players have played each other two times besides this match. Florian has been the dominator in this rivalry as he won both fixtures between the two tennis professionals.
The 24 year-old Turkish made his way up to the 2nd round clearing the qualifiers. Beating Borut Puc, Ivan Navarro and Philipp Petzschner in the first three fixtures the world No.117 made a slight mark that was soon cleared
up in the 2nd round of the German Championship. Despite the fact that the Turkish had been playing on clay for a long time he quite did not get what he hoped for.
However, in case of the German international, Florian got a lucky strike this time. He had been struggling in the past few games but managed to kick himself out of the losing streak in the nick of time. The 27 year-old did have
injuries in the past but this time the German blazed fire upon the Turk to win the match.
The 2 setter started off with Ilhan opening the first game of the match. Winning the first game, Ilhan played on Florian’s serve but lost and the scores levelled up 1-1. The Turk served for the third game and gave away the first
breakpoint of the match that certainly cheered up the home fans. With scores at 2-1, the German increased his lead to 3-1 in the following game. The scores steadily changed but the Turk could not cut the 2 games lead of the German ultimately losing the first
set 6-4.
The second set seemed even worse as Ilhan lost the opening game serving first and the next as well. With 0-2 down in the first set, Ilhan finally struck a breather to cut the lead to 1-2. Winning his first breakpoint, the 24 year-old,
Ilhan levelled the score in game 4 of the second set. After this there was a rain of breakpoints as game 5, 6, 7 and 8 were breakpoint wins and once again levelling the scores to 4-4. The battle continued till the set led to a tiebreaker.
The tiebreaker was surely not a hard wall to break for the German as he smashed a forehand to finish off the set 7-5 and the match 6-4, 7-6(5) with pure perfection.
Statistically, Ilhan had more service points but lacked in returners. The Turkish also availed less breakpoints but surely gave a tough time to the World No.20.
Florian Mayer will now play the mighty Argentine Juan Monaco for a fight to the 3rd round.
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