Illya Marchenko (UKR) d. Kei Nishikori (JPN) 64 62Marchenko is a hard worker, who has a quite a high ball toss with a service motion - reminds me
Chela's. He hits pretty flat with both sides and is quite a consistent player. Actually there isn't much to talk about this match;
Marchenko played a big game and didn't miss much. On the other hand
Kei Nishikori played one good point than made two errors in a row, he never found his rhytm, and his oppenent played well enough to take advantage of it. I didn't watch the match and games closely but it was looking like this most of the time, that was the case all match. Honestly Kei didn't try hard at the end; he didn't tank, but he didn't try his best and didn't look too concerned about the loss after the match. He watched
Soeda's match before playing his doubles.
Kristian Pless (DEN) d. Haluk Akkoyun (TUR) 61 62Didn't watch much, since it was over in no time anyway.
Pless is a tough player, even a few DFs he hit in this match couldn't disturb his comfort in this match. I wanted to have another look at it, but it was already over.
Alexander Kudryavtsev (RUS) d. Prakash Amritraj (IND) 63 63A lot of to say about this. Alexander (aka Sasha) - he is a psychopath on court, he is a tall guy, and bashes the ball well. Match started with exchange of breaks, then Sasha held for 4-2 and from then on he looked comfortable all the way. Prakash was impressive with his serve & volley game in R1, but today he played against an opponent who was hitting a lot harder from both sides, and Prakash was either rushing to the net and missing the approach shot, or with a weak approach shot he got passed over and over. When Sasha missed the pass or volleyed out, that was the comedy time, he shouted, threw his racquet all over to back fence, to his chair, to the ground and hit a ball which probably landed outside of the country. With his play wise he was pretty clever and good though, he hit some aces as well, after the early in the 1st set he didn't lose his serve I remember. There will be some ball bashing in the QF between two ball bashers.
Bjorn Rehnquist (SWE) d. Go Soeda (JPN) 57 75 60Soeda's matches are turning into marathons and that's no surprise with his game plan, and today again he played with a guy who has similar game plan as his. Rehnquist, as I described earlier, hits from both sides with lots of spin and both guys are playing high percentage game with
Rehnquist making the attacking move earlier most of the time.
In the 1st set Swede was leading for most of the set with an early break, there were some long long rallies and games, pattern of the points were generally 10 shots of basic middle of the court rally then Rehnquist going for lines, either he was missing or Soeda getting some incredible balls back and winning the point at the end, these were grueling points for both. Despite the break advantage Rehnquist lost the 1st set at the end, with wasting two points for 6-6.
In the 2nd set it was like copy of the 1st set with both game plan and score wise; Rehnquist had an early break and kept it until 5-4 despite some tough games, but he got tense when serving for the set, hit a DF at first of the SPs and Soeda got a dead let cord for the 2nd, games back to 5-5 soon after, but Swede got another chance at 6-5, he again wasted a SP with another DF but after a long game he finally won the set with Soeda barely walking to his chair. Final set finished in pretty quick time with Rehnquist going to lines again but this time Soeda couldnt get much of the balls back. It was a nice win for the Swede and he is a nice guy, I was happy to see him winning.
Rehnquist v Pless match should be very interesting.
From the doubles matches I watched
Nishikori/Levine match mostly, which was the last match; they looked like an exciting team and 4 guys produced some good doubles tennis, it took few games for Levine and Nishikori to get used to each other but they looked pretty good on four court.
Amritraj/Bloomfield looks like the only real doubles team of the draw, they played so good, some brilliant touches at the net from both guys but if I heard right they will withdraw from the event now, they will play on grass next week so they will withdraw from the Saturday SF of this I heard, we will see, it is a shame if it happens, they can win this.
Thats it for today and see you tomorrow.
TobiREAD MORE ON TENNIS ALTERNATIVEIzmir Tennis Challenger 2008: Wednesday report
Like us on Facebook!CLICK HERE FOR LIVESCORES
