Hiroki Kondo sails past Hiroyasu Ehara into second round – Toyota Challenger 2011
Japanese Hiroki Kondo drilled through his compatriot, Hiroyasu Ehara in straight sets at the Dunlop World Challenge 2011, a carpet court Challenger Tour event taking place from 21st November to 27th November
in Toyota, Japan. He manipulated a 6-3, 6-2 victory over his 20-year-old countryman at their home soil on Monday.
World number 435 Kondo outmuscled his compatriot, ranked almost hundred places below him in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, on their second duel together. He not only maintained his winning streak against the
youngster but also booked a round of sixteen spot at this Challenger Tour event.
29-year-old Kondo cruised in the opening set and bagged entire serves through exquisite forehands and backhands from his box of tricks. He then cashed in one out of several breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to seal the
opener with a 6-3 victory. The winning Japanese spilled fewer errors and capitalised fully on the several unforced errors Ehara coughed.
The higher ranked Japanese kept momentum running into the final set. He lost his serve once but broke his countryman’s serve twice to earn a 6-2 score line. Kondo manifested an acceptable first serve share as compared to Ehara
and again took full advantage on the many errors his compatriot committed.
Kondo had a terrible season so far as he suffered an eight match losing streak. He snapped out from it in September in the Shanghai Challenger but failed to qualify in the main draw. The Japanese again fell to a two match losing
streak before regaining his form in Seoul in mid October.
Next up for the high flying Japanese is his compatriot Toshihide Matsui who upset sixth seeded Moldovan Roman Borvanov with a breadstick to reach this spot. Matsui took less than an hour to cripple the seed and earned a 6-3, 6-1
victory on their first meeting.
Top seeded local hero, Go Soeda will be joining Kondo in the round of sixteen. He dominated in both sets’ tiebreaker to overpower Taiwanese qualifier Chieh-fu Wang in straight sets.
He quickly swiped in entire serves after warding off all breakpoints faced. However, the Japanese failed to capitalise on any of the breakpoint opportunities to his advantage and took both sets to tie-breaker. Soeda outmuscled
the qualifier in it after hitting angled shots down the line and eventually sealed the deal with a 7-6(4), 7-6(5) victory on their first meeting.
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