Lukas Rosol beats Simone Vagnozzi to reach semi-final of Open Barletta Trofeo Dimiccoli & Boraccino
25-year-old Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic moved on to the semi-final of the Open Barletta Trofeo Dimiccoli & Boraccino at Barletta in Italy, by crushing the local hope, Simone Vagnozzi in the quarter-final. Rosol outclassed his opponent in straight sets,
6-2, 7-5, in one hour and twenty two minutes.
Sheer dominance was seen from the Czech in the opening set, but the Italian put up a stiff resistance in the next to stretch his opponent to his limits. Rosol’s mental resilience proved the critical success factor for him in the game and he moved one step
closer to win the Association of Tennis Professionals Challenger Tour tournament.
The 25-year-old Czech took 14 out of 15 first serve points in the opener, while holding his serve in all games. Three cracking aces from Rosol’s racquet earned him his first serve point at 2-1 and then another one at 4-2 gave him a commanding position in
the first serve. The Czech served convincingly out of the opening set at 6-2, getting one up in the contest.
Vagnozzi regrouped in the next set and made a fierce come-back with excellent cross-court hitting. He fully capitalised upon the five double faults committed by his opponent and pinched two serve breaks. Rosol retaliated with good attacking moves and clouted
two break points to the Italian to nullify his advantage, leveling the scores to 4-4.
The Italian received a double-break point at 4-4 and another break chance at 5-5, but frittered away all three opportunities. Although Rosol served with just 47 percent accuracy in the second set, he secured 16 out of 21 first serve points and 53 percent
of total points in the set.
The second set was about to enter a tie breaker when Rosol crafted his first match point at 6-5, only to be denied by Vagnozzi. The Czech got his second chance to wrap up the competition and a thudding fore-hand winner from Rosol marked an end to the contest
at 7-5.
Rosol has to wait until the second quarter-final before he knows his semi-final opponent. The Slovenian wildcard, Aljaz Bedene will play against Alessio di Mauro of Italy in the second quarter-final of the Open Barletta Trofeo Dimiccoli & Boraccino and the
winner will square off against Rosol on Saturday.
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