Melzer Marches forward in Hamburg
It was a fine warm day at the Rothenbaum Tennis Center in Hamburg, Germany. And a fine day indeed for the Austrian 3rd seeded Jurgen Melzer. Melzer opening his singles campaign at the ATP World Tours’ International German Open and scored a confident and easy win against the Argentinean Eduardo Schwank. This victory must have been a breath of fresh air for the Roland Garros Semi finalist after his loss in the doubles alongside Philipp Petzschner to defending champs Simon Aspelin and Paul Hanley.
Melzer who has a winning score of 14 matches of the 19 played, beat the world 50th ranked Schwank in a straight sets victory. Schwank is not new to the clay court, as he has been the quarter finalist on the clay three times. But it seemed that Melzer’s aces and serves were too much to handle. In serve points Melzer dominated the court with a 75% conversion. This worked out to his advantage and he was able to defeat his opponent pretty easily.
Scoring on 7 aces and converting five break point opportunities did the job for the Austrian. Schwank on the other hand seemed weak and failed to read his opponents game. The two players were in a showdown for the first time and Melzer proved his game by beating his opponent in just around 56 minutes and taking the straight sets by 6-4 6-1.
Melzer will now be playing French Jeremy Chardy who beat Philipp Petzschner in their second round game in Hamburg. Chardy posted a surprise with his win over his 37th ranked German counterpart. Chardy has won 10 out of his 26 tie for this year whereas Pezschner has one of 18 wins in 30 matches. And Chardy did it in style posting a straight sets victory of 6-3 6-3.
In other matches of the second round of the German Open three other seeded players made their exits. They include the 12th seeded Victor Hanescu, 8th seeded Albert Montanes and 5th seeded Nicolas Almagro. Victor Hanescu crumbled to a defeat that can be called an upset by the right handed 131st ATP Race Positioned Julian Reister who is a wild card holder. After scoring a set tie in the first set he lost in the tie break by 4 against 7. Reister took the second set comfortably by 6-4. In the other match Nicolas Almagro faced nine aces by the Uzbek 59th ranked Denis Istomin. Istomin scored a victory after taking both the sets in tie breaks. The first set with a 7-5 tie break and the second one by 9-7, making him match victor by 7-6 (5) and 7-6 (7).
79th ranked Pere Riba beat 8th seeded Albert Montanes to safely make his passage through to the 3rd round. The 22 year old Spanish qualifier hailing from Barcelona beat Montanes who seemed out of form. Riba took around two and a half hours to score his victory by 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(4). Montanes after clinching the trophy at the Mercedes cup has a 26-16 record after this defeat.
Later in the day the 7th seeded Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci defeated Simone Bolelli 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. The Italian qualifier Bolelli succumbed to Bellucci’s aces. This settles the score between Bolelli and Bellucci to a 1-1 where before this match Bolelli was leading 1-0 after defeating Bellucci in Bangkok Thailand. Andreas Seppi beat German Michael Berrer 6-2 7-6 (4) in about one and a half hour. Seppi will be facing Fabio Fognini in the next round.
In the final match of the day 35th ranked German Philipp Kohlschreiber defeated 53rd ranked Argentinean player Juan Ignacio Chela 2-6 6-2 6-4. After losing the first set to Chela by 2-6, Kohlschreiber staged a comeback to take the next two sets. The second round of the German Open Cup ends Wednesday. After which the event will enter its next round.
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