Michael Berrer blasts past local Harri Heliovaara into second round – IPP Open 2011 CH
Seventh seeded German Michael Berrer survived early resistance from local wildcard entrant Harri Heliovaara to move into the second round of the 2011 IPP Open in Helsinki, Finland on Tuesday, 22nd November. The pair
toiled for one hour and fifty three minutes before the higher ranked German edged past into the second round with a 7-6(4), 6-4 win.
Playing on the indoor hard courts of Tali, this was the pair’s first meeting ever on courts with the 105th ranked German requiring a bit more effort on his part to counter the local’s crowd support.
Calling the coin toss, Berrer opened serve in the first and quickly put himself on the scoreboard. The keen local youngster followed closely at his heels. With successful service holds, the pair forced the scoreboard to tick on
even terms as neither of the two would let up on the other. With three games each, Heliovaara made his first impact in the game as he broke Berrer to go 4-3 in the score extending it to 5-3 on his service moments later.
However, with one game win away from a set victory for the local, the set was far from over. The German bounced back in the ninth game as he reduced the deficit to 4-5. What followed next was perhaps the longest game of the match.
After nine deuces and several length rallies, Berrer finally managed to break his opponent, once more bringing the set score to even terms. The pair won one game each next to force the set into a tiebreaker.
The neck-to-neck run between the two continued well into the tiebreaker as neither player slipped up or managed to break through their opponents defence. A toe-to-toe run forced the score to remain on even terms for the first eight
points. However, kicking into high gear, Berrer was able to reel off three straight points to clinch a 7-4 win in the tiebreaker, going one up in the set score.
Leading in the set score, Berrer clinched an early lead in the second set as he broke his opponent in the first game to go 2-0 in the score. However, down but not out for the moment, Heliovaara broke back in the fourth game to
bring the score to two games each. Standing at 3-3, Berrer broke the Finn in the seventh game to clinch a 4-3 lead, extending it to 5-3 on service next. Although Heliovaara managed to hold his serve in the ninth game, it was all that he could do before Berrer
served out the set to clinch a 6-4 win.
The German now moves on ahead to play Slovak qualifier Andrej Martin in the second round of the event.
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