Janko Tipsarevic and Alejandro Falla through to the second round of the Delray Beach Championship
Sixth seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia beat Croatian Ivo Carlovic, as Alejandro Falla of Columbia defeated the Czech Jan Hajek in the opening round matchups of the Delray Beach International Championships on Tuesday. The Serbian wrapped up his straight sets
victory by 7-6, 7-6, as Falla took the win due to Hajek’s injury, to advance to the second round of the event.
The contest appeared to be fairly poised as both of the sets were decided through the tie breaker rounds. Only two break points were seen through the course of the match, as the contest went neck-to-neck all the way.
The match was serve dominated and counted a total of 30 aces. Both men had healthy first serve percentages of around 80, but Tipsarevic had two times greater return points percentage than his opponent. The Serb converted 90 of the total 167 points in the
match.
The opening set yielded no serve break for either player. The contestants kept winning their serves and an ultimate tie breaker had to come in play, as both men were still not prepared to let the set go and kept extending the tie breaker to 30 points.
Karlovic had set points on a number of occasions, but was denied by the Serb every time. Tipsarevic eventually wrapped up the opening set at 7-6 to lead the contest 1-0.
The second set was the same as the first, as both players dropped their first serve percentage and exchanged a serve break in the set. The baseline defence of the Serb was very solid, but he was unable to convert two more break chances.
Once again the tie breaker round came in play, as Tipsarevic was more aggressive this time and just allowed one point to his opponent. He concluded the decisive set at 7-6 to register a win in his first match at the tournament.
Tipsarevic will be playing the Slovakian Blaz Kavcic in the second round match. Kavcic outplayed Robert Farah of Columbia in a convincing straight sets victory by 6-1, 6-4.
In the other match, Alejandro Falla beat Jan Hajek of Czech Republic in an injury-curtailed version of the match. Hajek retired from the match due to an injury, allowing Falla to take the victory.
The qualifier Falla, had an excellent start to the contest and did not give a single chance to the opponent to bag a break point. The Columbian broke the bleak serve of Hajek thrice in the opener to lead the set.
Falla’s first and second serve percentages were 67 and 83 respectively, as he did not hit any ace in the match, but his serve met its marks on most occasions. The Columbian sealed the first set with an assertive score of 6-1.
The second set initiated with another serve break for Falla. The score was 2-0 when Hajek had to forfeit the match because of injury, letting Falla to pass into the next round of the tournament.
Falla will either be facing the eighth seed Adrian Mannarino or the Argentine, Leonardo Mayer in the second round encounter.
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