Chennai Open | Svrcina upsets second seed Harris, enters quarterfinals

Czech Svrcina celebrates his upset win.
| Photo Credit: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM

Dalibor Svrcina of the Czech Republic stunned second seed South African Lloyd Harris 6-1, 6-1 in the second round of the Chennai Open ATP Challenger at the SDAT tennis stadium here on Thursday.

Svrcina’s 12th straight win in India helped him advance to the quarterfinals.

Svrcina broke and Harris broke back in the first two games. Harris simply didn’t seize the crucial moments. On 2-1, Svrcina double-faulted to hand Harris a break point, but the latter netted to squander the advantage.

The Czech double-faulted again on 4-1 for Harris to have another break point. This time, Harris made three unforced errors for his opponent to go up 5-1.

Trailing 1-5 and on 40-40, the South African twice committed unforced errors to concede the set. The second set didn’t get any better for him.

Svrcina attributed his victory to being “physically prepared,” especially since he thought they had played “in intense heat in the middle of the day.” ​He observed that his opponent “lacked match rhythm” and became “very tired” after a few games.

The 22-year-old, who played far from the baseline, said he aimed to “keep the ball in play” as much as possible, knowing that putting “four or five balls back” would be challenging for his opponent, especially in the “terrible heat.”

Top seed British Billy Harris staved off Turk Ergi Kirkin’s challenge 6-3, 6-3, to secure a last-eight berth.

The results (second round): Billy Harris (GBr) bt Ergi Kirkin (Tur) 6-3, 6-3; Dalibor Svrcina (Cze) bt Lloyd Harris (SA) 6-1, 6-1; Kyrian Jacquet (Fra) bt Alexis Galarneau (Can) 6-2, 6-2; Shintaro Mochizuki (Jpn) bt Michael Geerts (Bel) 6-4, 6-4; Timofey Skatov (Kaz) bt Aslan Karatsev (Rus) 6-4, 7-5; Oleksandr Ovcharenko (Ukr) bt Alexey Zakharov (Rus) 0-6, 7-6, 6-4.