Oswald/Pavic struggles past Matsui/Suzuki in the doubles opening round – Dunlop World Challenge 2012
Fourth seeded Austrian-Croatian tandem of Philipp Oswald and Mate Pavic had a stiff contest against the local wildcard pair of Toshihide Matsui and Takao Suzuki but ultimately, came out as the deserving winners in straight sets.
They took one hour and 18 minutes to settle the final score line at 7-5, 7-6(3), marching into the quarter-final round of the ATP Challenger Tour event in Toyota, Japan.
The local crowd was fully backing up Matsui and Suzuki throughout the matchup but the Japanese contestants couldn’t live up to their hopes in the end. They stretched Oswald and Pavic to their limits but frittered away some crucial
opportunities towards the end to let the fourth seed duo fly away with victory.
The opening sets of the match took off in a conventional manner, with both teams holding their respective serves in the opening 10 games. Momentum shifted in the 11th game when Oswald and Pavic delivered the first blow
to their Japanese counterparts. They attained a commanding position in the set and had no trouble in serving out at 6-5, getting one up in the matchup.
The fourth seeded Austrian-Croatian junction kept with its winning impetus in the following set and broke the Japanese serve in the third game to accomplish a 3-1 lead right away. Matsui and Suzuki made an attempt to break their
way back into the match and nailed a serve break in the sixth game to level the score line at 3-3. No more break points were witnessed in the remaining match and the set was dragged into a tie-break round.
Matsui and Suzuki lost their steam in the decider and couldn’t secure more than three points. The fourth seeded contestants raced past the local wildcard entrants comprehensively, finishing off the match at 7-6(3) to enter the
round of eight. Oswald and Pavic delivered 68 per cent of their first serve on target, bagging 36 out of 44 points on it and firing 11 thudding aces to the opponent’s court en route to victory. They will face the pair of Hiroki Kondo and Chu-Huan Yi in the
quarter-final clash later this week.
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