India’s Somdev Devvarman battled his way through rain interruptions to notch up a hard-fought victory over lukas lacko of Slovakia in a gruelling opening round match of the men’s singles competition at the US Open tennis here.
The 28-year-old rallied from a set down to win the next two when rain interrupted the match. The Indian, however, returned to complete the job as he emerged 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 victories in the match which lasted three hours and 11 minutes at Flushing Meadows last night.
The world number 114 Indian will next take on Italian Andrea Seppi, ranked 20th, in the second round. Seppi beat Belgian veteran Xavier Malisse 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 in another men’s singles match.
Facing lukas for the first time, Somdev tried to curb his unforced errors and rode on his better net play and breakpoint coversation rate to surpass the world number 84 Slovak. Somdev won 93 per cent of the net points compared to lukas’s 63 per cent and also converted eight of the 12 break points that came his way. He also committed just 36 unforced errors, while Slovak had double the number of unforced errors (73) in the match.
The Indian, who was laid low for more than a year after suffering a shoulder injury, won more than 50 per cent of points when serving at 30-30 or Deuce.
However, lukas was way ahead when it came to hitting aces and winners. The Slovak hit 47 winners and 11 aces, compared to Somdev’s 30 and 5 respectively. “I’m very happy with the way I played. It was an incredibly tough match,” Devvarman said after the match.
“I played a few great scramble points there in the fifth set at 4-4. I’m happy with that last bit of effort out there.”
Devvarman, who made his way through three qualifying matches, said he had better idea about the court as he was “match sharp”. “less time on the court is better but you do what you can to take advantage of what you have,” Devvarman said.
“I’m familiar with the speed of the courts. I’ve played a lot of matches. I’m match sharp. I hope I can take advantage of that in the next match. The only way I can improve is to fight through every match and I feel like I’ve done that,” he added.
However, the opening round match did turn out to be a frustrating affair for Somdev as it was stretched to an eight-hour affair following more than four hours of rain interruption.
“Bummer for me, momentum switch,” Devvarman said. “But you have to pull your pants up and deal with it. Just the nature of the beast,” Somdev said.