Philipp Petzschner stuns Milos Raonic to reach the final four – Gerry Weber Open 2011
German Philipp Petzschner edged past eight seeded Canadian Milos Raonic in a thrilling three setter on his home soil at Gerry Weber Open 2011 on Friday. He registered a 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-3 win over the 20-year-old Canadian to advance
into the semi-finals here at Halle.
World number 71, Petzschner got all fuelled up with support from his home crowd and earned a surprise victory over the Canadian, ranked 43 places above him, in almost two hours. They were facing each other for the first time and
after this victory at Gerry Weber Stadion, the German took a lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against Raonic.
27-year-old made quick in-roads as he unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to reel off first three games in a row. Later, he kept his consistency level and bagged his remaining serves to clinch the opener with a 6-3 win. Petzschner
faced zero breakpoint and earned a spectacular 93 percent win on his higher first serve share.
He kept his ways into the second set and held his opening serve in the second game to level the scores at 1-1. The German rolled balls expertly onto the lines to hold on to his entire serves.
Booming star Raonic on the other hand re-ignited his spark and saved the only breakpoint faced. He smashed five aces and smoothly kept his entire serves. The Canadian clobbered a higher first serve share of 66 percent as compared
to Petzschner’s 54 percent and registered an amazing 85 percent win on it. However, he failed to convert three breakpoint opportunities he founded to his advantage and took the set to tie-breaker. Dominating in it, the Canadian eventually levelled the set
score with a 7-6(6) win in the second set.
Petzschner bounced back in the decider and struck out the first three games in a row. He produced a similar first serve share of 65 percent and earned an impressive 75 percent win on it. In addition to this, he faced zero breakpoint
and converted one out of five breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to pocket this final set with a 6-3 win.
"He didn’t serve that many aces, at least not for him," assessed Petzschner. "So I have to say that I disarmed his service a bit. I would say that I played a really good match today. Very concentrated, very aggressive. That was
the goal."
Petzschner, who reached the last four in this tournament last year as well before losing to Roger Federer, said about the match, "It was a tight match on a knife edge. I nearly won it in the second set."
He will next face the highest seeded player left in this event, second seeded Czech Tomas Berdych. Berdych bested fifth seeded Serb Viktor Troicki with a breadstick to reach this spot.
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