Tillstrom packs off Kucera

April 8: Former champion Mikael Tillstrom packed off Slovakian Karol Kucera to move into the quarterfinals of the ATP Gold Flake tennis t...

April 8: Former champion Mikael Tillstrom packed off Slovakian Karol Kucera to move into the quarterfinals of the ATP Gold Flake tennis tournament, here on Thursday.

The Swede, gunning to regain the title he had won in ’97, had a torrid time at centre court before bringing down the in form Kucera 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 in a prolonged battle of errors that lasted two hours and seven minutes.

Going by the ranking, it was Kucera who started as favourite, fresh from his team’s 3-2 upset win over reigning champions Sweden in the Davis Cup last weekend in which he played a significant role winning against Thomas Enqvist and Thomas Johansson. Kucera committed far too many errors and in the end caved in without a fight.

The initial flare and fluency in the ground strokes of Tillstrom put the Slovakian in a spot of bother, despite the latter gaining an early break, only to see the crowd favourite restoring parity in the fifth game.

Kucera started the first set in style by breaking Tillstrom’s first service game and raced to a 3-0 lead. Tillstrom changed gears by retaining his service on love in fourth and sixth and broke the Slovak in fifth to wrest back the initiative.

After the games went with the serves till 5-5, Tillstrom surprised Kucera with some blistering groundstrokes to take crucial 11th game. He followed it up with great style by winning his service in the next to pocket first set 7-5.

Kucera started showing glimpses of his natural self in the second set and there were a total of seven service breaks in it – four in Slovak’s favour and three in Tillstrom’s.

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After sharing three breaks each for 4-4, Kucera retained his serve in the ninth and then earned breaking point when Tillstrom netted a return. The Swede, however, managed to stretch the game to deuce before double faulting to give the second seed another chance to level back. Kucera kept up the tempo and won the set 6-4 in 38 minutes.

In the decider, Tillstrom had to fight hard on his service in the second game as it went into deuce seven times, Kucera earning breakpoints twice. The Swede, however, stood firm for 1-1 and then on he never looked back playing a monotonous baseline game while Kucera tried variation by approaching the net but with little benefit.