Tomas Berdych trounces Juan Martin Del Potro to reach title-round – Mutua Madrid Open 2012
Seeded sixth in the tournament, Tomas Berdych, edged past the Argentinean number one, Juan Martin Del Potro, in two sets’ tiebreaker at the Mutua Madrid Open 2012 on Saturday. He joggled up a 7-6(5), 7-6(6) victory against the 23-year-old to secure a place in the final showdown at this blue clay court event taking place in Spain.
The Czech number one took down Del Potro after unleashing his true colours in the tie-breaker of both sets. Battling each other for the fifth time, Berdych not only avenged his loss at the Rotterdam ATP 500 series event but also lowered trail in the FedEx ATP Head 2 Head series by 2-3 against the Argentinean.
"I am definitely very happy with the game I played here since the beginning of the week," the Czech stated after the match. "It doesn’t matter that much if you drop a set or not, it's just how it is. Sometimes you can fight through the whole tournament and then get to the final as well.”
Berdych made a sloppy start at this ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event and suffered the first blow in the third game to trail at 1-2. However, he stayed focused and not only snatched his break in the 10th game but dominated in the tie-breaker to pull out the opener with a 7-6(5) score line.
Ranked seventh in the South African Airways ATP World Tour Rankings, Berdych kept momentum floating into the second round and earned the critical break in the opening game to jump to a 2-0 lead. Despite squandering his edge in the sixth game, the Czech slid his remaining serves and took the set to a tie-breaker. He prevailed in it and bagged the set with a 7-6(6) success.
All in all, the 26-year-old drilled 15 aces and impressively marked 38 out of 50 points on his first serve share to earn the glory.
Currently ranked ninth in the ATP rankings, Del Potro played his best tennis but was ultimately underplayed by the Czech.
"The match was really long, really close," Del Potro commented afterwards. "I think that we won the same amount of points. But this is tennis and one of the two has to lose and he played the tie-breaks better than me. Those were the key points."
Up next for the Czech ace is the 16-time Grand Slam champion, Roger Federer, who toppled the seventh seed, Janko Tipsarevic, in straight sets to set-up this encounter.
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