Dalibor Svrcina of the Czech Republic outplayed the second-seeded South African Lloyd Harris to claim a well-deserved 6-1, 6-1 upset win in the second round of the Chennai Open ATP Challenger at the SDAT tennis stadium here on Thursday.
It was Svrcina’s twelfth straight win in India, and he has advanced to the quarterfinals.
In the first two games, Svrcina broke, and Harris broke back. Harris simply didn’t seize the crucial moments of the match. On 2-1, Svrcina double-faulted for Harris to play for a break and draw level, but the latter netted to squander the advantage.
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The Czech double-faulted again, this time on 4-1, forcing Harris to play for a break again. This time, Harris made three unforced errors, allowing his opponent to go up 5-1.
Trailing 1-5 and on 40-40, the South African twice erred unforced again to concede the set. The second set didn’t get any better for him.
Svrcina attributed his victory to being “physically prepared,” especially since he thought they had played “in intense heat in the middle of the day.” He observed that his opponent “lacked match rhythm” and became “very tired” after a few games.
The 22-year-old, who played far from the baseline, said he aimed to “keep the ball in play” as much as possible, knowing that putting “four or five balls back” would be challenging for his opponent, especially in the “terrible heat.”
Top-seeded British Billy Harris staved off Turk Ergi Kirkin’s challenge, 6-3, 6-3, to secure a last-eight berth.
The results (singles, second round):
Billy Harris (GBR) bt Ergi Kirkin (Tur) 6-3, 6-3; Dalibor Svrcina (Cze) bt Lloyd Harris (RSA) 6-1, 6-1; Kyrian Jacquet (Fra) bt Alexis Galarneau (Can) 6-2, 6-2; Shintaro Mochizuki (Jpn) bt Michael Geerts (Bel) 6-4, 6-4; Timofey Skatov (Kaz) bt Aslan Karatsev (Rus) 6-4, 7-5; Oleksandr Ovcharenko (Ukr) bt Alexey Zakharov (Rus) 0-6, 7-6, 6-4.
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