Roman Borvanov ousts Maximilian Abel in the first round – Istanbul Challenger 2012
Ranked 287th in the South African Airway’s ATP Rankings, Roman Borvanov, prevailed over the German, Maximilian Abel, to qualify for the second round of the Istanbul Challenger 2012, held
at the hard courts of Turkey. The Moldavian native summed up his straight sets victory, 6-4, 7-5, on the eve of Tuesday.
The 30-year-old, Borvanov held his initial serve and confidently marched forward in the set with forceful ground strokes. Abel dissolved his rival’s serve in the third game and evened out the score line to 2-all.
The Moldavian professional successfully continued his voyage without facing any break of serve, with the scores squaring down in the sixth game to 3-all and then again in eighth game to 4-all. He finally broke his opponent’s serve in the 10th game,
closing the set with a 6-4 score.
The lower ranked German professional could merely pocket away 11 of 20 first and five of 15 second delivery points. On the contrary, Borvanov had 60 percent first serve accuracy and he clinched 12 of 13 points
in the opener.
The following set proved to be a tough challenge for both players, as they battled hard to get the better of one another. The 30-year-old German levelled the scores in the fourth game by 2-all and broke his Moldavian
rival’s serve by the end of ninth game. Unfortunately, he was never capable to prevail over his opponent and eventually gifted the set away marking a 5-7 loss.
Both players preserved a similar first serve accuracy of 63 percent but Borvanov secured 16 of 25 first and eight of 15 second deliveries. The German challenger successfully bagged away 13 of 22 first serve points,
with eight of 13 second points and converted one of three break points.
The Moldavian native has never battled past the qualifying round of an ATP World Tour tournament in his career and he needs to adopt a more proactive game plan to defeat the over powering odds. For the next
round, Borvanov will contest against Dmitry Tursunov in the second round of the Challenger. The Russian professional dumped the world number 304th, Mirza Basic, 6-1,7-6(6) after a tough battle in the opening round.
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