Matteo Viola crushes Liang-Chi Huang in the quarter-finals – KEIO Challenger 2012
Fourth seeded Italian player, Matteo Viola, completed a comprehensive win over the 352nd ranked player from Taiwan, Liang-Chi Huang, to advance to the semi-finals of the KEIO Challenger in Yokohama, Japan on Friday.
It took the Italian player one hour and three minutes to beat Huang in a one sided match.
There were a number of breaks in the first set, seeming like the match was being held on a clay court and not hard. Viola lost his opening serve to go down 0-1 but he hit back immediately to level the score at 1-1. The Italian
player claimed two more games in a row to attain a 3-1 lead but it was Huang’s turn to fight back this time, as he evened out the proceedings at 3-3. However, Viola had the last laugh after all that back and forth moments, as he won three straight games to
capture it 6-3.
The Italian national smacked a single ace and committed a couple of double faults in the first set. The 6ft 2in tall gave a better performance on the replies to Huang’s serves than his own ones. Viola lost nine of the 24 points
on the first and nine of the 15 on the second deliveries. However, the right-hander pocketed nine of the 13 on the first and five of the nine on the second returns.
Viola continued his winning spree in the second set, as he broke Huang three times and did not lose his own serve even once till the end, grabbing six games on the trot to seal it 6-0.
The Marghera-Venice, Italy resident neither hit any ace nor committed any double fault in the second set. The 25-year-old made a lot of improvement in his serves, keeping the first delivery percentage at 87 and bagging 12 of the
13 points on them. Viola further picked up his performance on the returns, as he bagged six of the nine first and seven of the 10 second reply points. The Italian contender availed all the three break chances he received.
Viola will take on the unseeded local player, Taro Daniel, for a place in the title match.
Tags: