Tennis News

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His back against the wall, World No. 7 Rafael Nadal rallied for a dramatic 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(4) victory over upset-minded Lukas Rosol on Monday at the Swiss Indoors Basel.

How close was Nadal to defeat? His unseeded Czech opponent was just two points from victory in the second set.

“It was a very tough match emotionally,” said Nadal, who registered 23 winners to 27 unforced errors. “At the same time, it’s a great victory. It’s important for me to have these kinds of comebacks. I’ve been in these situations more times than I would like this year, so I’m happy to win a match like this.”

Buoyed by a pair of breaks, Rosol rolled through the first set in a mere 23 minutes, smacking eight winners and dropping just one point on his serve (16 of 17).

The No. 69-ranked baseliner continued to play clean tennis into the second set, opening the stanza with a break and before long was serving for the match at 5-4, 30-0. But Nadal still had some life left. On only his second break-point opportunity of the match, he sent a backhand pass down the line to even the set at 5-all. Rosol was serving to stay in the set down 5-6 when a double fault — only his second of the day — leveled the match at one set apiece.

The 30-year-old Rosol fell behind 3-0 in the third set as Nadal surged ahead. However, he would bring the set back on serve at 4-4 and the match-up would come down to a telltale tie-break. It was here that Nadal showed his experience in pressure-filled situations. He would storm back from a 0-3 deficit to nullify the upset bid in two hours and 16 minutes.

“It was tough for me to get into the match,” Nadal asserted. “It was a little bit of everything. A little bit of luck, a little bit of belief, to keep fighting for this match. That’s what I did.”

Although he came into the match 1-2 lifetime against Nadal, Rosol had defeated the 27-time ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titlist on a big stage before. It was at Wimbledon in 2012, after all, that Rosol stunned the Spaniard in the second round 6-7(9), 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4. But Nadal proved too tough this time around.

Qualifier Adrian Mannarino did manage to pull off an upset in the day’s first singles match. The Frenchman saved two match points and overcame a 15-ace performance from Serb Viktor Triocki to win 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(3) in two hours and 25 minutes. Other first-round winners included Donald Young (d. Henri Laaksonen 6-2, 3-6, 6-4) and Dominic Thiem (d. Robin Haase 0-6, 7-6(5), 7-5.

In the pair’s first meeting on the ATP World Tour, Pablo Cuevas upended Pablo Carreno Busta 6-2, 6-3 in just over an hour in the first round of the Valencia Open on Monday. The Uruguayan broke the Spaniard three times on nine break opportunities while not facing a break point. Cuevas will now face No. 3 seed Bernard Tomic in the second round.

In the other first-round encounter of the day, Vasek Pospisil kicked off his Valencia title bid with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Santiago Giraldo on Monday. The Canadian, who needed three sets to defeat Giraldo in the pair’s three previous FedEx Head2Head meetings (3-0), secured the win in just 71 minutes to notch his fourth win over the Colombian.

Pospisil’s straight-sets victory was made possible by some strong serving. The Vernon, BC native struck nine aces, won 25 of 26 first-serve points and did not face a break point en route to the second round. Next up is the winner of the match opposing Aljaz Bedene and Jeremy Chardy. Top seed David Ferrer could loom in the quarter-finals.

Bellucci/Fleming Take Out Top Doubles Seeds

No. 1 seeds Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram had their Spanish sojourn cut short by Thomaz Bellucci and Colin Fleming 3-6, 6-4, 10-4 in the first round on Monday.

Despite taking the first set and winning more points than their unseeded opponents (66-59), Klaasen/Ram were eliminated after 86 minutes. The South African/American dropped the lone break point faced on their serve, while Bellucci/Fleming saved eight of 10 break chances.

Swiss Indoors Basel 

Down a set to Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea at the Swiss Indoors Basel on Monday, Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares weren’t about to go down without a fight. Instead, the Austrian-Brazilian team charged back to score a convincing 4-6, 6-1, 10-8 win in 62 minutes.

Coming off a quarter-final showing in Vienna, Peya/Soares converted four of seven break-point opportunities and won 71 per cent (25 of 35) of their first-serve points on the afternoon. The duo is aiming for its first title since winning Munich in May (d. Mischa Zverev/Alexander Zverev).

Also advancing in Basel was the Colombian combo of Juan Sebastian Cabal/Robert Farah, 6-3, 6-4 winners over Switzerland’s Adrien Bosel/Marco Chiudinelli.    

They won their first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon and now Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau are looking to crown their career-best season by finishing the year as the World No. 1 pairing in the Emirates ATP Doubles Team Rankings.

Rojer and Tecau start the week just 245 points behind Bob and Mike Bryan, who aren’t playing at the moment while Bob is at home awaiting the birth of his third child with wife, Michelle. The Dutch-Romanian duo are the top seeds at the Swiss Indoors Basel, where 500 ranking points are awarded to the winning team.

“Because we had such a great Grand Slam year, we put ourselves in a situation to be close to No. 1,” said Tecau. “Now that we won our first Grand Slam, we’re looking for the next goal and the next motivation. This is a big one.

“We’re in this position because we managed to win Wimbledon. We’re looking forward to the next few weeks. We have three more events this year and there are a lot of points in play; we have a shot.”

It would be quite the feat by Rojer and Tecau. Since 2003, only two teams have interrupted the Bryans’ reign atop the team rankings – Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor in 2004 and Nestor again with Nenad Zimonjic in 2008.

But with the Bryans going win-less in the Grand Slams this season, other teams have taken their opportunities. None more so that Rojer and Tecau, who can count victory in Rotterdam and semi-finals at the Australian Open and Roland Garros among their achievements in 2015.

“[Finishing No. 1] would be another great accomplishment,” added Rojer. “We know that the Bryans have had a stranglehold on the No. 1 ranking for a lot of years now and they’ve been the best team out there.

“So it would be definitely something to remember and it’s quickly turned into a goal of ours.”

The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is likely to play a pivotal role in determining the year-end standings. However, between them, Rojer and Tecau have registered just two wins in 18 matches at The O2 and on their team debut last year, lost all three matches.

But both believe this year could be more successful. Having qualified earlier than normal, Rojer and Tecau are hoping that a less hectic run-in, without chasing points at every turn, will benefit them.

“Personally I haven’t played my best tennis there,” said Rojer. “It’s always been bittersweet because you’re happy to have made it there, it means you’ve done something well throughout the year. But you want to showcase your best tennis in that moment as well. It’s going to be a great event again.

“We’re going to prepare a little bit differently than we have in the past. Luckily we qualified earlier so we don’t have the pressure going into the event. I think that will pay dividends in the end. The last few years we’ve had to play every week to make it, so we haven’t had the freedom of controlling practices and schedule as we would like. It’s a really nice accomplishment and it’s one of the goals we had at the beginning of the year. That we can tick that one off also feels really nice.”

Tecau added, “In previous years it was always a fight till the end to get to London. Now we managed to qualify fairly early. Going into these last few weeks of the year, our main goal is to do well and win in London. We’re going to try and schedule our practice and tournament weeks to peak in London. This year, just like we did with the slams, we want to put the emphasis on London and give our best tennis there.”

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