Clay is supposed to the weakest surface for Somdev Devvarman - but the Indian No. 1 player continued his breakthrough season on the ATP tour with a remarkable 7-6 (8-6), 2-6, 7-6 (10-8) win over world no. 26 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and advance to the quarter-finals of the Serbia Open in Belgrade.
Devvarman broke the Spaniard's serve to go up 2-1 in the final set but then Garcia-Lopez won three games in a row to set up what seemed like a formidable 4-2 lead in the decider. but Devvarman fought back to take the set into a tie-break where he once again found himself coming back from 2-4 down to win the marathon 10-8 in the tie-breaker.
The Indian saved 10 of 16 breakpoints on his serve while coverting 4 out of 5 on his opponent's.
The match lasted 3 hours and 13 minutes and Devvarman will now play either local favourite Janko Tipsarevic, who he beat in the Davis Cup in Serbia just last month, or Mischa Zverev.
The win assures Devvarman 45 ranking points and will see him move to a new career-high of no. 67 in next week's rankings.
World no. 2 and the hottest player in tennis Novak Djokovic is also competing in this tournament and Devvarman could meet the Serb, who is 25-0 this year, in the semi-finals of this ATP 250 event.
He is the best Singles tennis player from India.
ReplyDeleteHe will go atleast to the top 25 ranking I believe.