Rajeev Ram overpowers Michal Przysiezny in the first round – Ortisei Challenger 2011
American Rajeev Ram bounced back set down to hammer Pole Michal Przysiezny in the first round of Ortisei Challenger tournament. The match was contested at carpet, Bross Slide courts in Ortisei, Italy. The match lasted for almost
two hours and ended up with a score of 6(6), 6-3, 6-3.
Ram was enjoying a prolific run of form in recent past and had won bulk of his matches whilst his opponent was clearly struggling to make any sort of impact at the courts and had lost five of his last nine encounters. Przysiezny
superior rank and head-to-head record with Ram hinted towards his win but his dismal form depicted otherwise.
Non-Italian encounter couldn’t attract much support from fans at the arena and there were several seats that were empty that sliced out the pressure of crowd. Pole started the things in commanding fashion and held on to his serve
and so did his opponent. The see-saw battle continued till the end of the set and there was no break throughout the set.
Both players were hanging on to their serves and didn’t allow any opportunity to their rival to have any sort of advantage at any stage of the first set. Ram was better than his opponent and he looked more promising but failed
to capitalize on four allotted opportunities to break his rival’s serve. His lack of ability to break helped enforce the tie-breaker to decide the set between the two.
It was obvious that American had an upper hand and would win the first tie-breaker but Pole stunned everyone with his remarkable ability to come up with crucial points at critical stages that helped him dismantle the focus of his
rival and clinch him the first set.
American was trailing with one set down but came up strong in the second and clinched the first three games by breaking once. He smashed three aces in his two serve games upfront that delighted the small crowd. A round of applause
was received by the American on his two successive fierce aces.
The Pole tried his best to break but was not allowed a single opportunity by his competitor. The score kept ticking and Ram held on his serves with command that saw him take the second set in thumping manner. Match was perfectly
poised at that stage with one set apiece and an epic third set battle was expected seeing a prolific performance from both players.
It was a traditional slow start to the third set but as the score line ticked close to finish, momentum started to grow and both players felt pressure. Both were equally cautious with their shot selection and at the score of 2-2,
Ram broke his opponent’s serve to take the lead and pushed the score to 4-2 in a flash.
Przysiezny couldn’t break back and in fact lost another game on his serve that proved to be the final game of his tournament. Rajeev Ram marches into the second round and locks horns with Alexander Kudryavtsev.
Tags: