The first round of the Winston Salem Open on Monday featured two of the ATP's journeymen on tour. 36th ranked Martin Klizan went up against Turkish number one Marsel Ilhan. The match had plenty of memorable points and good play, ultimately ending up with Klizan as a winner 7-6(1), 6-2.
Klizan wrapped up the match in one hour and 17 minutes. It was the first head-to-head meeting between the two players on tour. The Slovakian fired eight aces and won 58 percent of the total points to get the job done.
Klizan Outlasts Ilhan in First Set
The match would start out as a hold of service for both players to get one apiece. This routine would continue as both players could not get their teeth into their opponents service games. Klizan displayed an almost perfect first service points won in the set with 93 percent, and an extremely efficient 73 percent of service points won on his second serve. Ilhan also was impressive with first service points won of 86 percent. The trend of service holds would continue until the match was locked dead even at 6-6. Both players did not face a single break point all set.
In the tiebreaker it would prove to be all Klizan. Klizan took advantage of Ilhan's passive play by playing first strike tennis. He would wrap up the first set with no problems in the tiebreaker by only conceding a single point on way to a 7-6 first set finish.
Klizan Improves as Match Goes on
The second set of this first round match would prove to be a completely different outcome. With Ilhan's spirits broken after his poor play in the previous tiebreaker, Klizan would take control right away. Ilhan's weakness was his second serve return efficiency. Even as Klizan struggled to get his first serve in with a low 28 percent, Ilhan was unable to capitalize. He would not be able to get a break point opportunity, while all it took was two breaks from the Slovakian to finish off the match with a 6-2 second set finish.
What's next?
With the victory, Martin Klizan goes on to face 11th seeded Jiri Vesely in the second round.