“I’m not going to sit here and say that I thought impossible is nothing. I just gave everything I got. I just played the point.”
Oleksandr Nedovyesov can be pretty direct. In such rare moments, the Kazakh would give you the truth and nothing else. Usually, though, he talks in circles and can be whimsically funny.
Throughout his interaction with the media after sneaking past Japan’s Yuichi Sugita 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) in the second round of the ONGC GAIL Delhi Open $100,000 ATP Challenger at the DLTA Complex on Thursday, the top seed moved his head in all directions and hardly addressed anyone specific. It looked as if Nedovyesov was picking ideas out of the air — ideas that eluded him, only to return later.
Victory too had proved similarly elusive. With Sugita serving at 5-3, 40-15 in the decider, the Kazakh “just played the point.” It was enough. Nerves got the better of Sugita and the errors unfolded.
For Sugita, it unravelled to the point that he double-faulted to be broken. The last rites were carried out soon.
Nedovyesov meets Lucas Pouille in the quarterfinals.
The Kazakh, though, has a few worries before the last eight match. Having finished his first-round match on Tuesday evening, the 27-year-old complained that he had not had enough recovery time before playing Sugita.
What compounded Nedovyesov’s pre-match worries was that he had never played Sugita before. “I didn’t watch his first-round match. So, it was tricky,” said the Kazakh.
This, perhaps, explains Nedoyesov’s disappointing start. Much hinged on service returns in the opening set, and Sugita edged this aspect of play. In fact, the Japanese won 80 per cent of his service points in the opening set owing to Nedovyesov’s poor returning.
In the remaining sets, though, the quality of Sugita’s service returns dipped markedly, even as Nedovyesov hardly gave away anything while serving.
Despite breaking the Kazakh’s serve early in the third set, Sugita failed to maintain the pressure on his opponent.
After the service break, Sugita won only one point out of 13 on Nedovyesov’s serve before he was broken at 5-3. The laxity was to prove decisive soon enough.
The results: Pre-quarterfinals: Oleksandr Nedovyesov (Kaz) bt Yuichi Sugita (Jpn) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3); Lucas Pouille (Fra) bt Thomas Fabbiano (Ita) 6-4, 6-4; Radu Albot (Mda) bt Blaz Rola (Slo) 6-4, 5-7, 6-4; Evgeny Donskoy (Rus) bt Matthias Bachinger (Ger) 7-5, 6-1.
Doubles: Quarterfinals: Saketh Myneni & Sanam Singh bt Ti Chen (Tpe) & N. Sriram Balaji 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 10-7; Sanchai Ratiwatana & Sonchat Ratiwatana (Tha) bt Illya Marchenko (Ukr) & Radu Albot (Mda) 6-3, 6-7(9), 10-6.
