Lukas Lacko overcomes Uladzimir Ignatik to book a quarter-final berth – IPP Open 2012 CH
World number 53, Lukas Lacko, continued his sublime run at the IPP Open and outsmarted his Belarusian counterpart, Uladzimir Ignatik, in the second round clash on Thursday. The one-sided contest took merely 67 minutes to conclude
and the second seeded Slovak come out as the deserving winner in twin-sets 6-4, 6-4.
Lacko was facing Ignatik for the second time in his professional career and repeated the results of their prior encounter. He didn’t face any real challenge from the Belarusian opponent and kept playing aggressively throughout
the match. The 25-year-old Slovak had a formidable serve game and used his powerful forehand to perfection.
The opening set took off in a sloppy manner and both contestants held their serves one after another. No break point was witnessed in the opening nine games of the match and it appeared as if the set is heading to a tie-break.
Lacko finally got an opportunity in the 10th game and cashed it promptly to conclude the first set at 6-4.
The second seed Slovak dropped just two points on his first serve, bagging 12 out of 14, in the opening set and was evenly good on his second delivering. Ignatik couldn’t even go closer to a break point in the entire opening set
and had to pay the price in the end.
The Belarusian underdog had a brilliant beginning to the following set and broke his rival’s serve in the third game to attain a 2-1 lead. He held the upper hand in the set until the eighth game, when Lacko broke his serve to level
the score line to 4-all. Another break of serve was followed immediately and it was all over for Ignatik. Lacko came out as the winner after sealing the set number two at 6-4.
Lacko again served impressively in the second set and won 14 out of 16 first serve points. He crafted two break chances and cashed in both of them to reach the round of eight at the IPP Open. Ignatik also had two break points but
converted merely one of them to finish on the losing side in the end.
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