Serbia’s HTT veteran champion Vladimir Vukicevic has announced on Sunday evening at the end of the second matchday…
Serbia’s former HTT champion Vladimir Vukicevic made a victorious start to the 2018 HTT Tour finals on Sunday evening at the end of the second matchday despite a mixed performance against Masters newcomer Andreas Szabados. The 37-year-old HTT-US Open winner struggled for 1:51 hours against an ambitious opponent who was equal over long distances, before he saved himself a third set with a bit of luck and fixed his 13th individual Masters victory with 7:6, 6:4. “For my performance today it was the optimum and a tailor-made start”, Vukicevic was pleased to say, and even the loser Andreas Szabados was able to sum up his Tour Finals debut with satisfaction. From the second matchday of the HTT-Tour-Finals reported for hobbytennistour.at C.L
The winner of 2016 and former ranking first Vladimir Vukicevic has celebrated a successful start into the HTT-Tour-Finals 2018 – at least in terms of results. The 37-year-old HTT superstar of WAT Landstrasse won the evening match of Group B after an open and altogether 111-minute exchange of blows against the ranking seventh Andreas Szabados from Lower Austria with 7:6, 6:4, and thus he lifted himself into a favorable starting position in the exciting ascent race of the homogeneous preliminary round Group B. It was not the famous “yellow from the egg” from the point of view of the triple Serbian HTT Wimbledon winner, and a surprisingly hardened and for long stretches more than serious performance of the triple winner of the season, Andreas Szabados, who in the end were responsible for the suspenseful 7:6, 6:4 final result.
The fans at the center court of the UTC La Ville got their money’s worth in any case. It started with the atmospheric march in the colored fog to the sounds of Natual the Imagine Dragons, and then continued on the court in almost two hours of handsome tennis with 151 points played. Szabados had to overcome the first critical situation in his very first game on the Tour Finals stage, when he had to fend off three break chances on his way to a 1-0 lead. Szabados got over the first moment of shock, put off his first nervousness, but then found his way into his Masters debut quite quickly and above all respectably, and kept the first set open until 4:4 with his serve. The newcomer to the finals in the ninth game felt that he should not be allowed to make a big mistake at this level, when he weakened the odds on the first serve and Vukicevic immediately took the initiative with two mighty curtain winners, and finally grabbed the break to 5:4 after his opponent’s first double mistake to zero. So the first set seemed to be over, and also a preliminary decision was made in this match. Especially when Vukicevic had two set balls in his chest on his own serve and 40:15 and pushed away a volley in perfect position on the net at the first of the two big points. From 10 of these flight-balls, the Serbian probably transforms 9 unerringly, 8 of them probably even in the sleep. But this one was pushed out by the experienced Sombor player, who brought Szabados back into this first set, which was decided at the end after exactly one hour in the first tie-break of this tournament.
In the second run Vukicevic looked like the early winner, when he secured a break to 4:2 and Szabados, who was playing stable until then, had to struggle with the first longer periods of weakness. The 29-year-old Lower Austrian’s luck at this stage, however, was that Vukicevic was playing his way up to a true non-form in terms of service. Three double faults in a row are rarely seen by the 16 times tournament winner from Serbia, and never on such a big stage. Until just yesterday evening, where he traded in the re-break to 3:4 with his double fault orgy. As a result, both players held their serve, Vukicevic more bad than right and with more double faults. In the end, it was ugly 7 pieces that disfigured his match statistics and almost forced him to overhear in the form of a third set. Because at 4:4 Szabados actually had a break point again, and who knows what would have happened then. But Vukicevic put all the pressure on the Szabados, who then hit the ball, and it came as it had to: The Masters debutant failed on his own serve and finally conceded the decisive break to 4:6.
This was Vukicevic’s 13th victory at Masters level at his 6th Tour Final start in a row, and a reason to celebrate his 195th individual victory in his impressive HTT career, which in the end was 2:0 sets clearer on paper than it had been when he finally dropped out. Also because Vukicevic had psychologically considered with Szabados to skip the heaviest opening hurdle. It was in a group with Prüger and Wolf practically the obligatory victory, without which nobody in this group will experience the semifinals of this year’s finals as active. “Yes, I think so,” confirmed the winner. “In the subconscious, that was certainly a factor. In the end, to be honest, I was lucky today. I’m really happy that I didn’t have to play a third set and that I’m looking good with a 2-0 win in the group. I wasn’t feeling well at all. My legs were tired and somehow I don’t have the self-confidence to win such matches more clearly at the moment,” said the fourth ranked player. “The odds were there today. In the tie-break, luck wasn’t on my side. In terms of my head, this was my best performance this season,” Szabados found positive in the hour of the defeat. “I will give everything now against Wolf and play offensively, and perhaps I will succeed with a dream day a sensation against Prüger”, so the 29 year old.
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