Lukas Rosol prevails over Kenny De Schepper in the first round – Slovak Open 2012 CH
World number 84, Czech Republic’s Lukas Rosol, needed two tie-breakers to oust the 120th ranked player from France, Kenny De Schepper, in straight sets 7-6(5), 7-6(4) in the first round of the Slovak Open in Bratislava.
The Czech player needed one hour and 36 minutes to undo Schepper.
Rosol and Schepper served superbly in the first set, as they held their entire service games to equalise the score at 6-6 and take it to a tie-breaker. The Czech contender grabbed a mini-break in the middle of it to take a 4-2
lead and maintained it till the end to win 7-6(5).
The right-hander used his blistering serves to win most of the points, banging five aces and keeping his first delivery percentage at 64. The 6ft 5in tall captured 20 of the 25 first and 10 of the 14 second serve points. Rosol
could not respond well to Schepper’s strong first deliveries, as he lost 25 of the 31 on them but he balanced that by securing seven of the 13 with the help of his accurate second returns.
The proceedings of the second set were not much different from the first, as both players serves splendidly well and did not allow each other to claim any breakthrough till the end. After 12 games were played, score was level at
6-6, so tie-breaker was forced. Rosol pocketed opening three points this time to build a 3-0 advantage and made the most of it to triumph 7-6(4).
The Czech player pounded four aces on Schepper but the French contender responded by hitting eight of them. None of the two players made any double fault in the second set. Rosol, however, was much better than his rival if we talk
about other serve statistics, as he maintained a first delivery percentage of 82 and converted 27 of the 32 of them into points.
Rosol was an unknown player on the ATP World Tour for most until four months ago but then he entered lime light by upsetting Rafael Nadal in the second round of the Wimbledon Championships.
The Czech player will face Thiago Alves or Andre Begemann in the second round.
Tags: