Bok strolls into second straight RI Satellite men's tennis final
Bok strolls into second straight RI Satellite men's tennis final
JAKARTA (JP): Martijn Bok of the Netherlands moved within one
win of a second title in the Indonesia Satellite men's tennis
circuit when he eased past the second seed, Italy's Igor Gauri,
in straight sets yesterday for a place in today's final.
The Dutch fourth seed, the first leg winner in Bandung, West
Java last week, proved a 67-place difference in world rankings
did not count for anything. Playing nearly flawless tennis, Bok
stormed to a 6-3, 6-1 win in a match that lasted only 53 minutes.
He has only dropped 10 games from four matches going into the
final.
In today's final, Bok expects a much tougher clash against
third seed Dmitri Tomashevich of Uzbekistan, who bounced back
from four games to love down to roll over home favorite Andrian
Raturandang 6-4, 6-0 in the other semifinal.
"I might be lucky and win easily today. It gave me a
confidence boost heading for the final," world-ranked 424 Bok
said after the match which he obviously controlled throughout.
Gauri, who crashed out in the quarterfinals last week, had
problems with his first serve. He managed to win his first two
service games of the first set, but never came close to winning
after Bok broke him for a 3-2 lead. The Italian world number 357
capped his shaky start with a double fault that cost him the set.
Bok stepped up the pressure in the second set, bursting into
an unstoppable run after the first two games were shared. He
broke Gauri to go 3-1 up and turned the remainder of the set into
one-way traffic.
Tomashevich also scrambled to regain ground against Andrian
who played before only a handful of enthusiastic fans. Andrian,
the only Indonesian contender left in the tournament, delighted
his supporters with smooth serve-and-volley play to go four games
clear in the opening set.
But a cool Tomashevich changed tactics to douse Andrian's fire
with angled long balls which pinned the Indonesian on his own
baseline. The Uzbek clay specialist underlined his dominance as
he blanked Andrian in the last two games of the first set.
A fast-tiring Andrian was totally dispirited in the second
set. He wasted a chance to break the duck when Tomashevich,
serving for the match, went 0-30 down due to troubles with his
serve.
"It was a disappointing match. I just could not stand his
double-handed backhand which forced me to stay on the back foot,"
Andrian said. "He (Tomashevich) should win the final if he keeps
up this sort of play."
In the doubles event, American Rob Chess and New Zealander
James Greenhalgh upset Italian top seeds Gaudi and Giorgio
Galimberti 6-1, 7-6 (12-10). The mixed nationality pair will only
know their opponents this morning after referee Peter Duncan
suspended yesterday's other semifinal match due to bad light.
First leg winners Bok and Owen Casey won the first set 6-2 but
were trailing Australia's Andrew Bates and Blake Brinklow 3-5
when the match was stopped. (amd)