Tennis players Botic van de Zandschulp and Tallon Greekpoor made a winning start to the ATP tournaments in Belgium and Sweden.
In Antwerp, Van de Zandschulp beat the Swiss Dominic Stricker (ATP-90) in three sets (6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-3) and the Greek Spoor had less difficulty in two sets against the Finnish Emil lived. Stockholm Ruusuvuori (7-6 (3), 6-4).
For Van de Zandschulp, victory over Stricker meant revenge for last year, when the Netherlands’ world number 67 lost to Switzerland in Antwerp. A boost for Van de Zandschulp in a difficult season.
Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the world number seven, now awaits the round of 16 of the tournament in Belgium.
After losing the first set (he lost two service points in the tiebreak) Van de Zandschulp recovered well. He didn’t waste the early break in the second set. There was no break in the third set until Van de Zandschulp increased the pressure to 4-3 and passed Stricker with a nice passing game to score the third break point.
Greek course continues
At about the same time, Greek Spoor entered the fray at Ruusuvuori in Stockholm, more than 1,500 kilometers to the north. The Dutch world number 25 needed just two sets.
Greek Spoor defeated the Finn for the third time this season. But this did not happen automatically. “He changed tactics compared to previous matches, and I had to adapt to that,” Greekpoor said afterwards. He explained why the first set was so difficult.
Greekpoor got an early break (1-3), recovered midway through the first set (3-4) and later conceded a set point on his own serve but survived. In the tiebreak, Francespor remained more calm than its opponent. The Finnish player lost his serve twice.
Neither of them gave up the game in the second set. However, when the score was 5:4, Greekpoor made the only break of the second set. He needed only one match point to advance to the quarter-finals where he would face Pavel Kotov in the Russian qualifiers.
Source: NOS
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
