Olivier Rochus outlasts Go Soeda in the first round – Hall of Fame Tennis Championships 2012
Belgium’s Olivier Rochus scored a tough victory over the world number 54, Go Soeda of Japan, in three sets 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the opening round at the Campbell’s Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in New Port, USA on Monday. The Belgian
player stunned Soeda in an hour and 54 minutes.
Rochus and Soeda started the match in a steady manner, as they did not lose their serve in the opening eight games and equalised the score at 4-4. The Belgian grabbed a breakthrough in the ninth and capitalised on it to triumph
6-4.
Ranked 104th in the world, Rochus hit a single ace and 68 percent of the first serves, bagging 14 of the 19 points on them. The Belgian, who is one of the shortest players on the ATP World Tour with a height of just
5ft 6in, pocketed 14 of the 19 first and seven of the nine second delivery points. He could not reply properly to Soeda’s strong first serves, losing all the 14 points on them but balanced that by winning nine of the 15 on the second ones.
In the second set, Rochus and Soeda held their serve in the first five games to take the score to 3-2 in favour of the latter. The Japanese hit a blow to Rochus in the sixth and consolidated on it to move ahead 5-2. Soeda went
down 15-40 when he served for the set at 5-3 but grabbed four successive points later on to capture it 6-3.
The Japanese contestant pounded three aces but also committed two double faults in the second set. The 27-year-old managed to maintain a low first serve percentage of 47 but converted 15 of the 17 of them into points.
Rochus did not lose hope after getting down in the second set and made an ideal start to the decider, snatching opening two games to build a 2-0 advantage. Though, Soeda broke back immediately and held his next serve to even it
out at 2-2. The back and forth trend continued, as Rochus won three games in a row to race to a 5-2 lead. Soeda almost struck back in the ninth but failed to utilise on two break opportunities and lost it 3-6.
The Belgian, once again, failed to claim any point on the first returns but gave a very good performance on the second ones, clinching 10 of the 13.
Rochus is drawn to play either Igor Sijsling or the second seed, Kei Nishikori, in the round of 16.
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