Matthias Bachinger crushes Teodor-Dacian Craciun to reach the second round of the Status Athens Open
Fourth seed Matthias Bachinger of Germany blew away Romanian qualifier, Teodor-Dacian Craciun in the opening round of the Status Athens Open at Athens, Greece on Tuesday. The 134th ranked German took merely one hour
to wind up his straight sets victory 6-3, 6-1, to book a second round berth in the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Challenger Tour event.
The 30-year-old Romanian proved a total mismatch for the fourth seeded Bachinger and failed to pose any real challenge to his opponent. Craciun’s sloppy moves clearly depicted that the age factor is taking its toll out of him while
competing against the 24-year-old agile German. Aggression was clearly absent in the Romanian’s game and his own mistakes led him down in the contest.
Bachinger had brilliant serve statistics in the game, something his opponent greatly lacked. He delivered 71 per cent first serve on target and secured 24 out of 32 points on it. The German coughed three double faults but fired
four aces to compensate for it. Bachinger crafted eight opportunities to break the Romanian serve and converted five of the chances en route to victory.
The German took the early advantage by breaking in the second game of the opener with a cracking ace. He spilled out two consecutive double faults to bestow a break point to Craciun but took the advantage back from him in the very
next game by stinging a serve break to lead 5-3. Bachinger reeled off 16 first serve points out of 22 and served out of the first set at 6-3 with ease.
The Romanian veteran slumped further in the next set and played a number of errant shots ending long and wide of the court. His double fault count rose to five for the second set alone and he nabbed just 12 out of 29 total serve
points.
Craciun was put in early pressure as the German stung two straight serve breaks to rocket away to 4-0 lead in the second set. He finally held serve in the fifth game and failed to register any break point to bounce back in the
contest. Bachinger fully capitalised upon the weaknesses of his opponent and bagged 80 per cent of his serve points. He delivered the final hammer blow to Craciun when he broke in the seventh game to wind up the match at 6-1 and progress to the second round
of the competition at Athens.
Next up for Bachinger is the Spaniard, Roberto Bautista Agut, who won his opening round match against the Russian qualifier, Andrey Kumantsov in straight sets 7-6(5), 6-2, to make it to the second round of the Status Athens Open
on Tuesday.
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