Potito Starace overcomes Jan Hajek to reach semi finals – San Marino CEPU Open 2011 CH
Top seed Italian Potito Starace proved true to his colours by raking in another win over Czech Jan Hajek in Friday’s quarter final match at the coveted San Marino CEPU Open 2011. Starace steered clear of his opponent with a 6-4,
6-3 effortless win in the one hour sixteen minutes match. Starace leads the seeded players Benoit Paire and Marc Gicquel on to the semi finals of the increasingly popular tournament played at the clay courts of Centro Tennis Cassa di Risparmio di Fonte dell'Ovo.
Both the players had played against each other four times before this match with Starace, understandably leading the head to head rankings 3-1. They had last met only recently at the BMW Open, Munich where Starace had cruised ahead
with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 win.
Starace came into the tournament with a respectable 20-21 win loss record and the Italian is now at a dominating position to end his dry spell for a title at the ATP Challenger Tour since June 2009. Starace had finished runner
up at Casablanca in April and has performed well in other tours as well. He recently clocked in a quarterfinal performance against Fabio Fognini at Umag, late July. The top seed had breezed had earlier breezed through his second round match in San Marino against
Jesse Huta Galung in two sets.
Starace’s opponent, the World No. 158 Hajek had made it to the quarterfinals at the tournament by defeating Belgium’s Steve Darcis 6-1, 7-5. The runner up at this year’s Marburg Challenger, Hajek has failed to perform on both the
professional and challenger circuits. He came into the tournament with a disappointing 0-10 win loss mark for the season to date.
Hajek played the opening game of the closely contested first set. Both the players served equally well at 75%; with Starace winning 89% of the points from them while Hajek managed to capitalise on 67%. The game progressed without
much drama and the score steadily levelled at 2-2. Starace then displayed excessive bravado to break Hajek’s serve in the fifth game and settle into a comfortable lead. The Italian sealed the first set at an effective 6-4.
A confident Starace opened the second set by breaking Hajek’s serve in the very first game. Despite serving at 78%, higher than Starace’s 70% Hajek capitulated under the incessant pressure of Starace’s breakpoints. Struggling to
save the 11 breakpoint situations that he faced, Hajek had little time to concentrate on winning points. He managed to win only 46% of the points from his serve. Starace audaciously closed the set 6-3 by breaking his opponent’s serve for the second time in
the very last game.
Top seeded Starace will next face eighth seed Benoit Paire, from France, in their semi final match at the San Marino Open. Paire has moved past Simone Bolelli and Nikola Ciric to make it to the quarterfinals of the tournament,
where he overpowered Leonardo Mayer 6-4, 6-3 to secure his berth in the semis.
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