Janko Tipsarevic overcomes Olivier Rochus in the first round – St. Petersburg Open 2011
World number 13, Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, had an excellent start to his St. Petersburg Open campaign, outplaying the 70th ranked Belgian, Olivier Rochus, in the first round on Wednesday evening.
The second seeded Serb took one hour and thirty five minutes of play to outclass Rochus in straight sets, 6-2, 7-5, to move into the second round of the ATP (Association of Tennis professionals) World Tour 250 event.
Being played on the indoor hard courts of the Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the contest appeared fairly one-sided throughout. Tipsarevic faced no real challenge from his unseeded opponent in
the matchup and cruised through both sets with ease to register his 49th victory of the running season.
Although the second seed had a below par serve precision of 44 per cent in the game, he fired 10 cracking aces and secured 22 out of 32 first serve points to come out as the winner. Tipsarevic converted all of his five break opportunities
and dropped his serve two out of seven times to drive his opponent out of the competition.
The Serbian had a flying start in the opening set, breaking his opponent in the first and the then again in the seventh game to seal the set at 6-2. Rochus stung two break points in the second set but suffered three crushing ones
from Tipsarevic to finish on the losing side in the end.
27-year-old Tipsarevic, who is a strong contender for the last three vacant places in the ATP World Tour Finals in London, improved his head-to-head record against Rochus by 3-4 after his Wednesday’s victory. These two men met
in the opening round of the US Open in 2010, with Tipsarevic winning the matchup in four sets, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(0), 6-2, but it was a lot easier for the Serb this time round. Tipsarevic has just won his second championship title last Sunday at Moscow and with
the top seed, Gilles Simon of France, out of the competition in the first round, the Serb is clearly the hot favourite for winning the title in Saint Petersburg as well.
Tipsarevic will next face the unseeded German, Michael Berrer, for a place in the quarter-final of the St. Petersburg Open. Berrer registered victory against Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan in the first round to book a battle with
the second seeded Serb in the round of 16.
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