Match report

Tomas Berdych © Tennistalk.com
ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament
1st round
2/20/08 1 2 Tot
cz  Tomas Berdych 6 6 2
hr  Ivan Ljubicic 3 3 0
Ivan Ljubicic © Tennistalk.com

  • Stunning Berdych dumps Ljubicic out

    2/21/08 2:45 AM | David Cox
    Tomas Berdych served notice of possibly title credentials this week, the 5th seed sending two time finalist Ivan Ljubicic crashing out of Rotterdam at the first hurdle; 6-3, 6-3.

    It was in stark contrast to last year when Berdych was sent crashing by a red-hot Mikhail Youzhny in the opening round. After seeing his draw, many thought it could be a repeat scenario this year but the young Czech was virtually flawless, completely overpowering the Croat and demonstrating favourable comparisons to Roger Federer have been made at times in the past

    Rotterdam is one of the few big indoor tournaments, Ljubicic has yet to win and the affable Croat promised local fans he’d buy everyone a drink if he finally clinched the title this year. After winning a South African challenger last week (a strange choice instead of Marseille), he came here with form under his belt and actually played very well today, hitting 9 aces and making 70% first serves yet Berdych broke him 3 times !

    The Czech was just simply unstoppable, dropping just 5 points over all his service games and never coming close to facing breakpoint. He was finding the mark with that devastating backhand of his right from point 1 and whenever they got into a baseline rally, Ljubicic always looked under pressure

    Berdych now faces another big serving Croat, the 6ft10 Ivo Karlovic for a place in the quarters

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