Philipp Kohlschreiber flashes past Thomas Muster to advance into second round – Bet-At-Home Cup 2011
Fifth seeded German Philipp Kohlschreiber swat past a local wild card enterer and a former world number one, Thomas Muster with a bagel at the Bet-At-Home Cup 2011, an annual tennis tournament held on the clay courts in Kitzbuhel,
Austria. He barely broke sweat to register a 6-3, 6-0 victory over the wild card entrant to advance into the second round on Monday.
World number 43, Kohlschreiber took just sixty-six minutes to crush the Austrian, ranked 965 places below him in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, in front of a pessimist crowd. The German was geared up well and
after this victory, he inched one round closer towards the €64,000 prize money and in order to shelf his fourth ATP title.
27-year-old German thundered into the opening set at the Tennis stadium Kitzbuhel and broke the Austrian’s serve in the opening game. He maintained consistency in his game to reel off first three games in a row.
However, the 43-year-old Austrian re-kindled his 1996 spark – when he was a world number one and snatched the break back in the fourth game. Later he lowered the trail by 3-4 but ran out of gas due to the age factor.
Kohlschreiber capitalised on it and after keeping his remaining serves, he broke the legend’s serve again in the last game to clinch the opener with a 6-3 win.
The German committed more double faults but outshined his much experienced rival in remaining departments of tennis. He produced a higher first serve share and registered an impressive 63 percent win on it. Furthermore, Kohlschreiber
saved 75 percent of breakpoints faced and converted three out of nine breakpoint opportunities to his advantage.
The Augsburg born star bombarded massive groundstrokes from his box of tricks to not only crush the Austrian Ace but also pocket a bagel in just few minutes. He clobbered a superb 76 percent of first serve share and earned 85 percent
win on it. Kohlschreiber was never threatened with a breakpoint and converted three out of four breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to register this amazing 6-0 score line.
He will next face Spaniard Albert Montanes who dumped his wild card countryman Javier Marti in straight sets to set-up this clash.
30-year-old Montanes took one hour and ten minutes to trash his 19-year-old compatriot with a 6-3, 6-2 score line. He converted five out of seven breakpoint opportunities to his advantage and fended off two out of four breakpoints
faced.
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