POZNAN, July 17, 2015
The final eight players were all in action on a sunny quarterfinals Friday at the ATP Challenger Poznan Open.
Top-seed Pablo Carreῆo-Busta headlined the matches, winning 7-5, 6-4 against Jan Satral. The 24-year-old Spaniard fired seven aces, won 73% of his first service points but just struggled a bit to close the match out, losing his only service game in the ninth game of the second set. In the following, however, Carreῆo-Busta finished the encounter after one hour and 31 minutes.
Jan Satral
Pablo Carreno-Busta
Tennis TourTalk spoke to the tournament’s favourite after his match:
The tournament’s number three Lucas Pouille set a semi-finals clash with the top-seed, winning 6-4, 6-3 against Andre Ghem. The 21-year-old Frenchman capitalized on four of his ten break points to seal victory in 75 minutes.
Andre Ghem
Lucas Pouille
„Today was a good day for me, I played well. So I am very happy,” Pouille told after reaching his third semi-finals of the season, following Auckland and St. Brieuc. It will be his first on clay this year.
“The last two months were a bit tough for me. I didn’t win any matches during the grass court season, unfortunately lost five first round matches in a row. But my tennis is back here. This will be good for tomorrow,” the world number 94 stated and is looking forward to Saturday’s clash with the top-seed. Pouille won the only previous meeting in Meknes in 2014 in straight sets.
“Last time, I played an excellent match against Pablo. I hope it will be the same tomorrow but it will be a different match, a different season. So we will see,” the Frenchman told and added that he will follow the Davis Cup this weekend supporting his countrymen in London playing against Great Britain.
Adam Pavlasek defeated Pere Riba, winning 6-2, 4-6, 6-2. The 20-year-old Czech won 66% of his first service points and capitalized on five of his ten break point chances to reach his second consecutive semi-finals in Poznan.
“I am glad that I was able to repeat last year’s success as well as defending my points,” Pavlasek was happy afterwards.
Pere Riba
Adam Pavlasek (photo: Poznan Open)
The youngster will take on fourth seed Radu Albot in the round of the final four. The 25-year-old Moldovan had to battle hard overcoming Pedja Krstin 3-6, 7-6, 7-6. In a thrilling match Albot rallied back from a set down to take the tie-breaks of the second set 10-8 and the third set 7-2. The world number 118 closed the match after exactly three hours of play under Poznan’s blazing sun and 30 degrees Celsius.
Krstin was understandably disappointed: “I am terribly tired. I think, I missed my opportunity in the second set when I had the momentum on my side,” the 20-year Serbian told. “But I fought until the end and I am happy to show a good performance on court today.”
