Philipp Kohlschreiber has also proved his strong form in the second round of Madrid and has reached the second round of the Masters in the Spanish capital for the second time after 2009. Three days after his final defeat in Munich, the 34-year-old defeated local hero Roberto Bautista Agut 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 and even fought off a match point in the decisive set.
After 2:32 hours the world ranked eighth Kohlschreiber transformed his third match point on the court Arantxa Sanchez in a duel with the eleventh seeded Bautista Agut. He had already won against the 30-year-old from Castellon de la Plana last Friday in the quarter-finals in Munich.
In the match for the last four Kohlschreiber will now face US Open finalist Kevin Anderson (South Africa/No. 6), who defeated Kazakh qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin 5:7, 7:6 (7:3), 6:2.
The Mutua Madrid Open was not a good place for the German Davis Cup player. Kohlschreiber was eliminated five times in the first and once (2015) in the second round of the last six Caja Magica events.
But one day after the convincing performance against Japanese Yuichi Sugita (6-4, 6-3), “Kohli” also started strongly into his second round match. Bautista Agut has already won the tournaments in Auckland and Dubai this year – but he won both titles on Hardcourt.
Kohlschreiber took the first service game from his opponent with the second break ball. But the Spaniard left no doubt that he was determined to get revenge for his recent defeat at the BMW Open. Bautista Agut regained his service for 2-2, but weakened again immediately afterwards and had to give up the first set relatively clearly after the third break.
As a result, however, the Stuttgart champion of 2014 caught up again – supported by the home audience on the second largest court of the facility. Kohlschreiber, however, could not continue his outstanding serve rate of the previous day when he only lost four points against Sugita in his own service in the entire match. The early break in the first game of the second round saved Bautista Agut.
In the decisive set Kohlschreiber played a break point at 2:1, but could not use it and immediately lost his service to zero in the next game. Everything seemed to be going for Bautista Agut, but he missed a match point with his own 5:3 lead – and had to accept the 5:5 equaliser a little later when he could not escape to victory. In the hot phase, the Augsburg native kept his cool and rewarded himself after another formidable performance.