Lukas Lacko edges past Richard Berankis to clinch title win – Slovak Open 2011
A local hero Lukas Lacko got the limelight after formulating a straight set victory over the Lithuanian Richard Berankis at the Slovak Open 2011, an ATP Challenger Tour event taking place on hard courts in Bratislava, Slovakia.
He warded off early resistance to register a 7-6(7), 6-2 success over the 21-year-old Lithuanian to lift his second Challenger title of the season on Sunday.
A former world number sixty Lacko put up a firm display of tennis to ease past the Lithuanian, ranked 95th in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, on their first encounter.
24-year-old Slovak confidently entered the Slovakian hard courts and held his opening serve convincingly. He then carried his momentum and bagged following serves until he got the desiderated break in the sixth game. Despite losing
his edge in the ninth game, the Slovak maintained consistency in his game and dragged the set to a tie-breaker. He dominated in it and subsequently clinched the opening set with a 7-6(7) score line.
Lacko went berserk in the final set and after bombarding powerful groundstrokes from his arsenal of skills, he went on a four games rampage before the Lithuanian could hold on. The Slovak then kept remaining serves and pocketed
the set with a 6-2 success.
Overall, Lacko displayed exceptional skills as he fired twelve ferocious aces and manipulated a better first serve share of 76 percent as compared to Berankis’ 63 percent. He also registered a fascinating 68 percent win on it and
jolted 80 points. Furthermore, the Slovak brushed off two out of three breakpoints came across and capitalised on three out of eleven breakpoint opportunities to his advantage.
The Slovak started the season standing on world number eighty-nine. Despite making to second rounds of many tournaments, he fell thirty-three spots below in the rankings before reaching Pingguo. Lacko raised the bar of his game
there and made a semi-final berth before losing to German Mathias Bachinger. Despite falling to a five match losing streak, the Slovak snapped out from it at Wimbledon Championships where he made into the main draw through qualifiers.
He repeated the same performance at the final Grand Slam event but kept his spirit high at St. Remy Challenger where Lacko made another last four berth. The Slovak form showed upward trend from here as he cruised to triumph his
maiden year-to-date title at Izmir before entering this event. The high flying Slovak shocked second seeded Belgian Steve Darcis in the semis and top seeded Turk Marsel Ilhan in straight sets in Izmir.
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