Yuri Schukin dumps Andrea Arnaboldi to advance into the quarterfinal – Poznan Porsche Open 2011 CH
Kazakh Yuri Schukin trashed Italian Andrea Arnaboldi in straight sets to advance into the last eight of the Poznan Porsche Open 2011, an ATP Challenger Tour event held in Poznan, Poland. He registered a 6-4, 6-3 victory over the
23-year-old Italian on Wednesday.
32-year-old Kazakh veteran displayed brilliant skills and abilities to down Arnaboldi, ranked 256th in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, in one hour and fourteen minutes on their first meeting.
World number 149, Schukin confidently entered the court and bagged entire serve with massive forehands from his box of tricks. He founded a single break point opportunity in the tenth game and duly converted it to his advantage
to seal the opener with a 6-4 win. The Kazakh slammed two ferocious aces and clobbered a higher first serve share of 72 percent as compared to Italian’s 67 percent. He also registered a superb 89 percent win on it and faced zero breakpoint.
The Kislovodsk resident kept momentum rolling into the final set. After Arnaboldi held his opening serve in the second game, Schukin unleashed barrage of groundstrokes to reel off next four games in a row before gifting away his
serve in the seventh game. The Kazakh then held his serve in the ninth game to seal the set with a 6-3 score line. He produced a lower first serve share this time but earned a spectacular 88 percent win on it. Furthermore, Schukin failed to save the only breakpoint
conceded but capitalised on two out of five breakpoint chances to his advantage.
Schukin had a disastrous on-going season after exiting from the qualifiers or the early rounds from all the events he participated. However, the Kazakh raised his form in May and clinched his maiden title of the season at Prostejov
Challenger. He then made a quarter-final berth at Marburg Challenger before reaching his second final eight showing in this event.
Next up for the Kazakh is the winner of the match between sixth seeded German Dustin Brown and Czech Dusan Lojda. If he maintains consistency in his game, he can definitely reach far.
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