SAVANNAH, April 24, 2015
The remaining four second round matches took place on Thursday at the St. Joseph’s/Candler Savannah Challenger.
Kicking off the day was number one seed Tim Smyczek, taking on Tenny Sandgren. Smyczek came out onto the court with a lot of confidence and quickly took the first set 6-1 after kicking in 61% of his first serves and saving the only break point he faced. In the second set though, a clearly frustrated Sandgren started interacting with the crowd and quickly changed the momentum of the match taking it 6-3, even after double faulting five times. In the final and deciding set, Smyczek quickly took control, winning it 6-0 after one hour and 41 minutes.
Tim Smyczek has reached his third quarterfinal of the season (photo: Jacob Stuckey – SJ/C Savannah Challenger)
Next up on St. Joseph’s/Candler Stadium Court, No. 5 seed Gastao Elias took on qualifier Sanam Singh. While Elias struggled at the beginning and played a close first set, he ultimately won the match 7-6(4), 6-4.
Julio Peralta battled through the qualifying to play his first singles main draw on ATP Challenger level since October 2013. In the opening round the 33-year-old Chilean, who has featured an on-and-off-career for 14 years, celebrated his first Challenger match win since 2011. Peralta retired in 2004 due to groin and shoulder injury, began a degree in civil engineering one year later, returned to professional tennis before he retired again in 2008 and came back to the tour once again. The originally Brazilian born, however lost his second round match against fourth seed Hyeon Chung 4-6, 2-6 in 71 minutes. The 18-year-old Korean fired in big serves the entire match and tallied up four aces.
In the featured night match, eighth seed and Japanese teen tennis star, Yoshihito Nishioka, took on Dublin native, James McGee. The first set was very close, ultimately going to a tie break with McGee taking it. In the beginning of the second set, Nishioka took the lead, but after suffering some type of back strain, McGee was able to come back and took the match winning 7-6(5), 6-4 in two hours and four minutes.
James McGee (photo: Jacob Stuckey – SJ/C Savannah Challenger)
Yoshihito Nishioka (photo: Jacob Stuckey – SJ/C Savannah Challenger)
