Opponents Wilt as Qualifying Continues @CroatiaOpenUmag, Ballboy Caught Texting

Opponents Wilt as Qualifying Continues @CroatiaOpenUmag, Ballboy Caught Texting

Stefano Berlincioni for Tennis Atlantic

Umag, Croatia July 19, 2015–Yesterday evening, I met Fabio Fognini’s father at the elevator and as soon as he saw me told me, “Stefano, it’s too hot here, I’m dying!” Fulvio Fognini is as funny as Fabio and he is right: Umag is really like hell these days. By the way, at the end of the day after the Ivanisevic-Coric exhibition, which was funny and had packed stands, I met Fabio playing darts with a friend of his and later, Bagnis arrived with Gonzalez!

Fabio congratulated Facundo for the Pan-Am Games gold medal and asked who were his opponents and if Argentina paid him for the medal. For the records, Fabio lost the 1st darts match and was saying “porcodiaz” (his typical expression) every three words, very funny and relaxed.

Today, matches surprisingly started at 11 am, a bit late in my opinion considering the insane heat.

Trinker def. Mitak 61 61

As expected, Trinker disposed very easily of the local wild card, who is no amateur but cannot compete at this level. The Austrian kept the focus for the whole match showing a good form again.

Gerald Melzer in action today: didn’t serve very well but was enough. He also got a warning for racquet abuse #umag pic.twitter.com/ZYn7XTYYkc — Stefano Berlincioni (@Carretero77) July 19, 2015

Melzer def. Surchenko 61 63

As I said in yesterdays’ report, Surchenko was absolutely not impressive yesterday but today was very pumped and played two times better than yesterday, serving much better and hitting quite hard. Melzer was a bit surprised at the beginning, but after getting broken he cruised until 6-1. He lost focus and went down 0-2 in second set, even getting a bit angry (destroyed a racquet) but managed to regroup and win quote comfortably. Not a stunning performance though.

Marcora def. Trinker 46 44 ret.

This was on paper one of the closest matches of the day. The first set was decided by a double fault of Marcora facing break point on 4-4 and he looked in control of the match, even leading by a break early in the second set. He was more solid from the baseline and very motivated, grunting loudly after every shot. In the middle of the second set, he started showing problems with his wrist/arm and began losing points with blatant errors so he decided to give up at 4-4.

Facundo Bagnis played a solid match today, always in control #umag @facubagnis pic.twitter.com/F3hBcem2mR — Stefano Berlincioni (@Carretero77) July 19, 2015

Bagnis def. Leonardi 63 63

Leonardi knew that his opponent would have not been so slow on court as Santiago Gonzalez yesterday and the ball speed difference was very clear from the beginning. It has to be said that Leonard played at a very decent level but Bagnis was really too much for him.

Gonzalez def. Leite 62 64

I could not watch many games of this match as I arrived in the middle of second set. Leite looked fresher and after being broken on 62 *32, he made a sign to his wife as if he was going to quit because exhausted. He kept fighting until the end of the set but was quite lucky because he managed to break Leite on 4-4 from 30-0 with the Brazilian missing a winner by one centimeter.

Trevisan def. Skugor 36 61 76

I arrived at the match at 4-1 second set and Skugor fully tanked the service game and especially the return game, not even trying to return. He was not injured though, just saving energy for the third set under Umag’s terrible Sun.

Ballkid had no balls for Trevisan because he was texting on a mobile that the guy behind him brought to him. pic.twitter.com/yprpyOL4HZ — Stefano Berlincioni (@Carretero77) July 19, 2015

The last set was quite entertaining with great winners from both sides as they are players who don’t like to wait for their opponent’s errors. At 3-3, Trevisan asked for a MTO because he was exhausted due to the heat and he needed more ice on his neck and head. He had a few break chances at 3-3 and he even had to save match points at 4-5. With both players almost down to no legs, the match went to a final tiebreak where Trevisan won 6 points in a row from *0-1 down, playing very aggressive and deserving the win. The Italian almost lost control of his nerves when he was serving to stay in the match because in the middle of the game, the ballkid had no balls for him to serve because he was texting on a mobile phone that a guy from the stands passed to him. A very unusual scene. He stopped texting, gave back the mobile and the guy disappeared from the stands in five seconds. Maybe some very urgent issue but still very strange.

Last little note: I attended Paolo Lorenzi practicing with Andre Sa and it was really amazing to see the intensity of Lorenzi during training.

Another day with insane heat is finished then and tomorrow, thankfully, matches will start at 5 pm.