Yuichi Sugita strains past Tim Smyczek to book a place in the semis – Honolulu 2012 CH
Quarter-final battle of the Honolulu Challenger tournament between Yuichi Sugita and Tim Smyczek unexpectedly extended in three-sets; finally the Japanese seventh seed contestant ousted the American with the final scores
7-5, 2-6, 7-5 on Saturday.
The Japanese started the contest with a successful serve game, with his opponent doing the same. First major breakthrough came for the Japanese when he broke serve in the fourth game of the set to take the lead. He looked
a better player at that stage but overconfidence let him down; his serve was broken in the seventh game and Sugita levelled the scores at 4-4 with a successful serve game.
Scores kept ticking over as both players capitalized on their serves. They met blow-by-blow with each other in the next three games, as the scores were pushed to 6-5 in favour of the Japanese. The American competitor held
his serve in the next game to enforce the tie-breaker. Unfortunately his shots were wayward in that game; he couldn’t hold his serve and lost the set in the end.
The momentum was with the Japanese but brilliant counterattack from the American earned him the first break point in the opening game of the second set. He broke again in the fourth game to double his lead that lasted till
the end of the set. Smyczek spared just two games in the second set for his opponent and levelled the scores with one set apiece.
Once again the stage was set for an epic thriller in the last encounter between the two and both players didn’t disappoint the viewers at all. First three games were gobbled up by the Japanese that included a vital breakthrough
in the second game. The American didn’t bob down and fought back to level the scores at 3-3 with a successful serve break in the fifth game.
No serve breaks were seen and scores were pushed to 5-5 with the Japanese to serve. He held his serve and stunningly broke serve in the twelfth game to seal the win. It was an epic encounter with the deserving moving player
moving into the semis.
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