March 16, 2006

(Sunrise, FL) - It was another picture-perfect afternoon at Sunrise Tennis Club – but top seed Florent Serra wasn’t enjoying the scenery in his match against Jiri Vanek. The first set went to Serra 6-3; then Vanek turned the favor, winning the second 6-3. In the third – things got interesting.

Vanek broke Serra to go up 3-2; then consolidated the break. After a couple of holds, Serra serving at advantage – he played a beautiful drop shot and Vanek’s lob fell long. At 5-4 on Vanek’s serve, Serra had two game points; but the game went to deuce twice. On Serra’s ad, Vanek approached the net and Serra ripped a clean backhand winner, tieing up the match at 5-5.

“After I broke him finally in the third set, I was 5-3 leading and then I started to be a little nervous,” Vanek said. “That was the point where he started to play good again. And he broke me back, then it was five-all, and it was a fight again.”

Serra held at 5-all, then Vanek held at love to get to the tie break. “He was a little bit up after he broke me back – he was leading 6-5, and he was battling like he was in the match again. I said like I have to keep my serve going into the tie break – tie breaks are always about luck a little bit. I make two or three good serves in the tie break and that helped me a lot.”

On Vanek’s second match point, Serra lost footing lunging for a volley and Vanek won the match 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(4).

Head-to-head, Serra has won two of three times they’ve played – and Serra is currently about 53 ranking positions higher than Vanek – but Vanek says “Now, the tennis it’s like, everybody can beat everybody – it’s no different if I beat first seed or eighth seed, because it’s a good draw here, you have good guys here. So you have to go step by step to the next match.”

After the BMW – Vanek plays qualies at the Nasdaq-100 Open.

In the third center-court match Thursday, two hard-hitting baseliners faced off – Austrian Stefan Koubek and #5 seed Alberto Martin of Spain. Since 1998, the two have played six times – with Koubek winning all but one match – that was in Auckland, New Zealand in 2004. This time, Martin prevailed in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2.

“It was a tough opponent for me today,” Martin said. “I think I played a very good match, and I feel very good winning a guy that has beat me all these years.”

The match was wall-to-wall blistering rallies, some of them thirty-plus shots. Alberto says in the ATP today – almost everyone is a baseline player, so whether you win or lose “depends on the level of the match. You just have to keep fighting, giving all the heart in the point, trying your best.”

Martin has played at this Challenger for all of its three years. He says he keeps coming back “mainly because I lose at Indian Wells, but I feel well here, I think it’s a great tournament, I feel very comfortable.”

In other matches – Rik DeVoest (RSA) defeated #8 seed Tomas Zib (CZE) 7-6(3), 6-3; #2 seed Dmitry Tursunov (RUS) defeated Peter Luczak (AUS) 6-4, 6-4; #4 seed Ivo Karlovic defeated Ramon Delgado (PAR) in a tough three-setter 7-6(6), 6-7(5), 6-3; Greul Simon (GER) defeated Alejandro Falla (COL) 6-3, 6-2; and #3 seed Andreas Seppi (ITA) defeated Lukas Dlouhy (CZE) 3-6, 6-3, 7-6.

For later results – please click here.

Gabe Norona, Tournament Director
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