Uladzimir Ignatik and Marcel Stebe through to the semi-finals at 2011 Guangzhou Challenger
Newcomer from Belarus Uladzimir Ignatik stunned third seeded Belgian Steve Darcis 7-6(4), 6-3 to reach his first semifinal of the season at Guangzhou Challenger Series in China.
The match started on a competitive note as both players gave their best to get the advantage early on. Serve breaks were exchanged and craft tennis was displayed by the two professionals in the first set as it went into a tie-breaker.
However, the Belarusian held his nerves and smashed a forehand winner to win the tie-break 7-4 and take the set.
The second set proved to be just a formality for the 20 year old as he required only nine games to complete a comprehensive win. The young Belarusian used his blistering forehands and backhands to great success and pushed his opponent
to the baseline from where he created difficult angles to cope with. On the other hand number three seed Belgian, who was once ranked as high as world number 44, was gutted with his ordinary effort. Darcis’s most considerable achievement was his victory over
Robin Soderling at 2008 Memphis.
Ignatik, the highest ranked Belarusian player, has won 54 percent of his matches in the last 12 months and looks in great touch ahead of his quarterfinal encounter against the fourth seeded Alexandre Kudryavtsev who defeated Japanese
Tatsuma Ito in straight sets. Ignatik would have taken a lot of confidence from his win and will be hopeful for his first career triumph.
In another match unseeded Credick Marcel Stebe of Germany defeated 6-3, 6-3 his compatriot and number eight seed Dominik Meffert. Stebe played aggressively right from start and caused a lot of problems to his opponent ranked much
higher than him.
He took the first set with a crucial serve break and then established a firm control over the situation in the second set by not allowing his opponent any kind of room to play his shots. The 22 year old used his half of the court
effectively and played in the chip shorts every now and then to surprise his opponent.
The German showed great mental strength, physical ability and temperament to compete with Meffert who has won two challenger series in the last twelve months. He is expected to take on Matthias Bachinger in the quarterfinal, who
eased past Sebastian Rieschick 6-0, 6-1.
Meffert has managed to win almost 70 percent of his matches during the last season and was certainly considered as the favorite for the clash. However, he was unable to bring his best performance in an important quarterfinal match-up.
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