Olivier Rochus bounces over Philipp Kohlschreiber to reach the title-round – Heineken Open 2012
Belgian competitor, Olivier Rochus, made a comeback victory against the eighth seeded German, Philipp Kohlschreiber, at the Heineken Open 2012, an Australian Open build-up tournament taking place on the hard courts in Auckland,
New Zealand. He formulated a 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-4 victory over the 28-year-old to secure a final-round spot on Friday.
World number 68, Rochus, broke the German’s serve six times to earn this victory in almost two and half hours. He not only avenged his loss at the World Team Championships in 2007 but also levelled the head-to-head series by 2-2
against Kohlschreiber.
The German made a shaky entry at the ASB Tennis centre and gifted away his serve in the opening game. Regardless of recovering in the very next game, he lost his serve again in the eleventh game, trailing 5-6 in the set. Kohlschreiber
snatched his break back in the last game and dragged the set to a tie-breaker round. He prevailed the decider and clinched the opener with a 7-6(4) score line.
Highly spirited Rochus took off the second set as a completely different competitor. After Kohlschreiber kept his opening serve in the second game, he unleashed a flurry of forehands and went on a five games rampage. The Belgian
easily swiped in entire serves without facing any breakpoint and cashed in both break chances to earn the breadstick.
30-year-old kept momentum floating into the final set and drew the first blood in the opening game to subsequently go 2-0 up. After levelling the scores at 3-3, he maintained consistency in his remaining games and capitalised on
another break opportunity in the ninth game to bag the decider with a 6-4 win.
Summing up the Belgian’s performance at this ATP World Tour 250 series event, Rochus manipulated almost an equal first serve share but clicked an impressive 48 out of 69 points on it. He coughed more unforced errors, including
four double faults, than his opponent but capitalised on six out of nine break chances en route to victory.
Rochus had a monotonous 2011 season, as he lifted a title at the Le Gosier Challenger but was ousted from the opening rounds of many ATP events. However, he made final showdowns at the Newport ATP event (lost to top seed John Isner)
and Rennes Challenger event (fell to third seed Julien Benneteau).
Namur born Rochus will next confront the winner of an all-Spaniards match of top seed David Ferrer and third seed Fernando Verdasco.
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