Tatsuma Ito bounces back at Bumpei Sato to reach the 2nd round – Toyota Challenger 2011
In a match between both local stars, second seeded Tatsuma Ito made an epic comeback to tumble over Bumpei Sato in a three set thriller at the Dunlop World Challenge 2011, an ATP Challenger Tour event taking place at the carpet
courts in Toyota, Japan. He registered a 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-1 victory over his 25-year-old countryman to reach the second round on Monday.
World number 122 Ito outmuscled his compatriot, ranked almost six hundred spots below him in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, on their first encounter. It took almost two and half hours for the higher ranked Japanese
to overpower Sato and to book a round of sixteen spot.
Sato breezed into the opening set and after hammering angled shots down the line, he plucked in entire serves. Furthermore, the Japanese capitalised on a breakpoint opportunity in the end to clinch the opener by winning seven games
to five in almost forty minutes.
23-year-old Ito re-focused his strategy in the second set and after displayed exceptional defensive skills, he fended off all breakpoints faced. However, the seed failed to cash in any breakpoint chance to his advantage and dragged
the set to a tie-breaker. Ito moved his countryman all over the place and eventually clinched the equaliser with a 7-6(5) score line.
The seeded Japanese went into savage mode in the final set. After his compatriot held his opening serve in the second game, he unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to reel off next five games in a row and earned a breadstick.
The winning Japanese had a good season so far. He made quarter-final berths at Singapore, Kyoto, Guangzhou, Leon and Granby Challengers, and reached the last four in Burnie and Nottingham. Ito also clinched titles at Recife Challenger
(earned a walkover victory against Brazilian Tiago Fernandes) and reached the final in Busan (lost to fourth seed Israeli Dudi Sela).
Next up for the high spirited Japanese is the winner of the match between his countrymen, Hiroki Moriya and a wild card entrant Takuto Niki. If Ito plays in a similar manner, he can definitely reach far in the tournament.
Top seeded Japanese Go Soeda will be joining Ito in the second round. He dominated in two sets’ tie-breaker to earn a straight set victory over the Taiwanese, Chieh-Fu Wang. Soeda required almost one and half hour to jolt down
a 7-6(4), 7-6(5) score line on their first face-to-face.
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