Tennis: Indian Wells: Marterer survives the battle of the nerves – also Barthel continues

Maximilian Marterer has reached the second round of the ATP-Masters-1000 in Indian Wells after a hard fight. At the women’s tournament Mona Barthel also won her opening match. Tennisnet summarizes the most important games of day two from Indian Wells.

Mona Barthel (GER) – Veronica Cepede Royg (PAR) 6:2,6:1

The 27-year-old Barthel had only few problems at the start against Cepede Royg. Barthel only had to give up three games, after 73 minutes the move into round two was certain. Barthel is thus continuing its recent upward trend after the weak start to the season. At the end of February she had reached the semi-finals in Budapest. But now Elina Svitolina, who is seeded number four, is facing a tough draw.

Maximilian Torture (GER) – Ivo Karlovic (CRO) 6:7 (13), 7:6 (4), 6:3

Torture had to fight considerably harder in his opening game. In the first set, he fought a real nerve-racking battle against the Croatian Karlovic in the first set: After Marterer lost the only break ball – meaning set-ball – at the score of 5:4 and impact Karlovic, it went into a tie-break. In this match, 27 points passed without a mini-break, before Karlovic took the lead with 1:0 in sets after four changes of sides.

Both players convinced with their serve, so that break possibilities were rarely found in the second set. Marterer, who beat five fewer than his opponent with 20 aces, had to fight off a match point at 4:5 from his point of view, but saved himself into the tiebreak again. This time the 22-year-old had the better end for himself and scored a decisive set 7:4, in which a 4:2 break was decisive. The Czech Tomas Berdych, number 12 of the seed list, is now waiting for round two.