Franco Skugor bounces back against Daniel Yoo to advance in qualifiers at Houston
6th seeded Croat Franco Skugor made an epic comeback from a set down to win against the South Korean Daniel Yoo with a bagel. He registered a 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory over the Korean to advance in the qualifiers at the
2011 US Men’s Clay Court Championship on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Croat met the Korean for the first time and after having a bad start, bounced back at Yoo to advance at River Oaks Country Club.
Yoo, currently ranked at 376th in the ATP world rankings, made a quick in roads in the opening set. He displayed his magnificent skills and held his entire serves superbly. Though he committed two double faults but he
saved a breakpoint and converted the only breakpoint opportunity to his advantage to win the set with 6-4 score line. The Korean hasn’t had much progress this season and was ousted from the first stage at many tournaments he entered.
The world number 149th is in good shape this season and has won seven out of his last ten matches. Despite exiting from the first rounds or qualifiers in all tournaments he entered in January, Skugor improved himself
in the following months and reached far in the ATP events he entered later. He made a semi-final berth at Casablanca and San Jose and made a quarter-final berth at Salinas and Santiago. He entered this tournament in full of confidence and destroyed American
Jesse Witten in straight sets.
Skugor destroyed the Korean in the second set as he reeled of six games in a row to clinch the set with a 6-0 win. He displayed his top notch performance in this set and in spite of giving up he bounced back to take the match to
another set.
Skugor entered the decider with same attitude as he held his opening serve spectacularly. He squared the scores at 2-2 and then went on fire to win the next four games in a row. The Croat clearly outplayed Yoo in this final set
as he smashed three aces and registered an awesome 92 percent win on his lower first serve share. In addition to this, he conceded zero breakpoint and converted two out of six breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to win the set convincingly with a 6-2
score line.
He will next face top seeded Alex Bogomolov Jr who defeated Chilean Nicolas Massu with a breadstick to reach this spot. The seeded American found eighteen breakpoint opportunities in the match and converted five to his advantage
to win the match with a 6-4, 6-1 score line.
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