Thomas Schoorel defeats Ivo Minar; makes it to the final of the Tennis Napoli Cup
Thomas Schoorel of Netherlands rallied past fifth seed Ivo Minar of Czech Republic in a three set thriller on Friday. He registered a 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-4 win over the 26-year-old Czech to advance into the final of the 2011 Tennis
Napoli Cup.
World number 126, Schoorel is in great form this season so far. He won the title at Rome Challenger by defeating Slovak Martin Klizan in the final round. The Dutch then entered this ATP Challenger event in full confidence and triumphed
over top seeded French Jeremy Chardy in straight sets in the first round. He then overpowered Slovakian qualifier Pavol Cervenak and sixth seeded Belgian Steve Darcis to reach this semi-final spot.
Minar, ranked four places above the Dutchman, on the other hand hasn’t had much progress at the start of the season but he re-formed his strategy in March. His new strategy led him clinch the title at Rabat Challenger and later
he made a quarter-final berth at Marrakech and semi-final berth at Rome. The Czech showed tremendous skills here at Italy as well and dumped third seeded Portuguese Frederico Gil en route to the semis.
The 22-year-old Schoorel took two hours and twenty-five minutes to trash the Czech on their first face to face at Tennis Cup Napoli in Naples. Despite having a slightly lower first serve share of 61 percent as compared to Minar’s
64 percent in the opening set, the Dutchman registered an acceptable 53 percent win on it. He saved only two out of four breakpoints faced and converted three out of six breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to win the opener with a 6-4 score line.
The Czech roared back in the second set and despite having a slightly lower first serve share; he earned an assuring 78 percent win on it. He just lost his serve once but held his remaining serves plausibly. Minar also converted
the only breakpoint opportunity to his advantage and took the set to tiebreaker. He prevailed in it to clinch the equaliser with a 7-6(4) win.
Schoorel get back on track in the decider as he raised his level of game. Though he committed more unforced errors and double faults, the Dutchman saved all four breakpoints conceded and converted one out of seven breakpoint opportunities
to his advantage to seal the set with a 6-4 victory.
He will face second seeded Italian Filippo Volandri who downed fourth seeded Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer with a bagel in ninety-four minutes. The Dutchman needs to practice harder and clobber fewer errors to overcome the world
number eighty-two.
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