Joao Souza upsets Filippo Volandri to book a spot the second round - VTR Open 2012
Italian veteran, Filippo Volandri, was a victim of a major upset on Monday in the VTR Open- Vina del Mar tournament’s first round. The Brazilian tennis ace, Joao Souza, dumped him in an epic three-set encounter; registering
a win with cumulative scores of 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(5). It took two hours and 52 minutes for the Brazilian to drive the 70th ranked Italian out of the competition.
BCR Open Romania was the event where both these players faced-off for the first time in their professional careers. It was the Italian who sealed the win in straight sets 6-2, 6-0 during the quarter-final match in September
2011. This time the Brazilian contender took his revenge of the last year’s loss and levelled the head-to-head scores at 1-1.
Volandri was absolutely unstoppable in the first set, hammering his opponent to all corners of the court. He spared just one game for his rival and bagged the first set with couple of successive breaks towards the end. Everyone
in the arena thought that this match would be over in the second set but Souza’s willpower and confidence was too strong to be dismantled by the initial all-round onslaught.
Souza started the second set in a goo fashion with a successful serve game but his serve was broken in the third game, bringing immense pressure on him. He continued fighting despite a superior show from his counterpart and
his efforts were rewarded in the eighth game when he successfully broke serve and levelled the scores at 4-4.
Stunningly, Souza saved three breakpoints in the eleventh game and coupled it with a successful breakthrough in the twelfth game to level the set scores at 1-1. No one could believe that Souza has pulled up such a majestic
turnaround after trailing from a set and a break down. It opened up the match for both contestants with the momentum favouring the Brazilian. Suddenly the Italian had himself under the cosh, struggling to find the rhythm in his game.
Both players held their respective serves in the third game till the end. There were couple of occasions when Volandri was under pressure, facing severe resistance from his opponent during his serve games but he went through
that crucial period. A tie-breaker round was enforced and after a close battle, 108th ranked Brazilian gobbled up two consecutive points at the end to bag the win and march into the next round of the tournament with an upset under his belt.
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