CORDENONS
An Italian town underwater. Due to another thunderstorm on Tuesday night and more heavy showers twelve hours later, not one single rally was played on Wednesday. Consequently, the schedule was fully packed on Day 4 at the FriulAdria Crédit Agricole Tennis Cup in Cordenons but the majority of the matches could not be finished again.
Thursday’s action started with two first round meetings. The encounter between lucky loser Walter Trusendi and last week’s semi-finalist from San Marino Guilherme Clezar resumed with the start of the third set and after a total match time of three hours and 41 minutes the Italian emerged victorious winning 4-6, 7-6, 7-6.
The match between seventh-seeded Potito Starace and Ricardo Rodriguez-Pace was cancelled on Tuesday night and could be finished with a comfortable straight set victory for the 33-year-old Italian winning 6-3, 6-1 in 66 minutes.
Cordenon’s second round started with a solid performance by Franko Skugor taking out the tournament’s last remaining wild card Flavio Cipolla. The Croatian qualifier stunned his opponent more than once in particular in the opening set by hitting a couple of groundstrokes right on the baseline. The world number 925 capitalized on nine of his ten break points reaching his first quarterfinal of the season through a 6-0, 6-4 victory in one hour and 29 minutes.
Just before the rain returned to the Province of Pordenone, Albert Montaňes booked a place in his second consecutive ATP Challenger quarterfinal beating last week’s finalist from San Marino Antonio Veic 6-3, 6-3 in 63 minutes.
In the following, only one doubles match took place on one of the indoor hard courts at the Eurosporting complex with second-seeded British tandem Ken and Neil Skupski beating 41-year-old Enrico Becuzzi and Paolo Lorenzi 6-2, 6-2 in 41 minutes. In the evening hours, the officials decided to postpone all other matches to Friday associated with the hope for better weather. Only the forecast doesn’t look very promising …