Matthias Bachinger moves into the semis, ousts Tatsuma Ito in quarterfinal – Granby Challenger 2011
The quarter- final of the Granby challenger Canada 2011 had an amazing match to conduct when Matthias Bachinger rivalled the Japanese tennis sensation Tatsuma Ito in a three setter match for a spot into the semis. The match was played on hard court. Good weather combined with a breath taking match made it a good day for the tennis fans all over.
The two rivals have a history in common. Matthias, the German world No.93, has been a dominator in this rivalry as they have played a total of 3 matches against each other including this one. The Japanese international is, however, not far behind as he stands at world No.110.
Tatsuma had been not in his best form lately as he had won only 5 of the last 10 matches he played. However, the Japanese world No.110 had a satisfying record on hard court. Playing a total of 210 matches on hard courts, Tatsuma succeeded in winning 127. His highest career rankings have been in June 2011 as he was ranked as the World No.104. The 23-year-old had never beaten the German in two attempts, making this his third.
Matthias has been enjoying his career highest ranking at the moment. Although he was at world No.92 a week before, he dropped down a place to World No. 93 as of his current. His previous two encounters against the Japanese international had been in his favour. The right handed German had won both fixtures with ease making this his third.
The match started off as Bachinger opened up the match and the score card 1-0. The German played the longest and the toughest match against the Japanese this time. Ito followed by winning the next game to level the scores to 1-1. Bachinger made his move, winning on his serve and a breakpoint of Tatsuma’s; he led the set 3-1. However, the Japanese gave in hard this time to take the score to 6-6 by game 12. Unluckily he lost the tiebreaker to the German to make the set score 1-0 to Bachinger.
The second set was a game of breakpoints rather than just a simple game win. Out of the 9 games played in the set, 5 were breakpoint games out of which Bachinger won 2 and Tatsuma won 3 leading to his set win of 6-3.
The decider set was yet another thriller. Bachinger once again took off with the opener and the first score on the board 1-0. One after the other, both players won on their respective serves leading the game to a tie at 5-5 with Bachinger serving. The German world No. 93 immediately won on his serve to make the scores change to 6-5. The end to this game was magnificent as the German won a breakpoint, set and the match flawlessly 7-6(4), 3-6 and 7-5.
However, the Japanese did give a good fight. This was by far the highest points scoring game of the tournament as the successor won 105 points including 63 service and 38 return points while the Japanese lost by just 4 points in total. The significant factor that led Bachinger’s win was that he smashed 17 aces throughout the game.
The German now sits in the semis to play against fourth seed Karol Beck.
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