Jürgen Melzer succeeds in the sensation at the ATP-500 tournament in Vienna! The native Viennese, who planned the last individual performance at his home tournament, defeated Milos Raonic in two tight sets. by Nikolaus Fink live from the Vienna Stadthalle
“I’ll go a lot from left to right,” Melzer had put on record before the encounter against the service giant. And the 37-year-old should be right. Only in the Canadian’s sixth service game did he win his first point as a recoil.
At this point the score was 5:5. Both players had managed their service games so far. To date. Melzer – inspired by Raonic’s first point on serve – set out to take the 27-year-old’s serve off and then serve on the set.
“Jojo” works his way up two breakballs. However, both knew how to fend off Raonic – Melzer missed the second one a little frivolously with a mistake on the second serve. And so it happened, as it must happen in games with the participation of the Canadian: A tiebreak had to bring the decision.
The local hero quickly took a 2-0 lead in front of the frenetic home crowd, Raonic was able to equal the score 2-2, before two more minibreaks led to a 3-3 score at the side change. With a double mistake Raonic gave the Austrian another minibreak for 5:3, but Melzer was a bit too good host and made a frivolous forehand mistake at the score of 5:4.
Two service winners later it was 6:6, Raonic fended off a set ball of the Vienna winner from 2009 and 2010 humorlessly with an ace. But then the old master once again showed his whole class. With a wonderful backhand passing ball, he played his second set ball, which he then turned into the 1-0 set lead. The town hall trembled!
Melzer took the momentum from the first section with him and brought Raonic to despair with many stop balls. At the score of 2:1 for the Austrian, the clear favorite then took a Medical Time Out – he had to be treated on the right foot.
But the Wimbledon 2016 finalist didn’t seem to be really affected – he won the first six points after the treatment break and even earned a break point. With three crashing serves, however, the experienced player withdrew from the predicament and set to 3:2.
Raonic continued to serve as hard as usual, but once the ball was in play, the 27-year-old was much more prone to mistakes than his ten-year older opponent. This was also the case in the sixth game of the second set: Melzer earned himself a break ball, but the service giant was able to fend it off and equal the score to 3:3.
At this point the match was on a knife’s edge, Melzer had to fight for his serve again. With a good service on the backhand of Goran Ivanisevic’s protégé, he defused another break opportunity and set 4-3 from his point of view.
Afterwards both players played their serve games until 6:5. Then Melzer earned himself a 15:40 and thus two match balls on serve Raonic. And then the sensation was perfect: A backhand from Raonic sailed out. Melzer won against Raonic 7:6 (6) and 7:5!
For the Austrian, the individual career now finds a continuation. In the second round he will play against Kevin Anderson, who was seeded two times.
“I want to savour this week and enjoy playing in front of you”, Melzer said on the court after the sensational success against number 22 of the world.
The single tableau in Vienna
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