Top Seeds Continue to Tumble in Germany but Ferrer Rolls Into Quarters

July 17, 2014 | By Long Island Tennis Magazine Staff

The Bet-at-Home Open got underway this week in Hamburg, Germany, and through the first three rounds, has not been kind to the top seeds. Thus far, eight of the top ten seeds in the tournament have been eliminated and the third round has not concluded yet.

The upsets began in the second round on Tuesday, when Austrian Dominic Thiem upended eighth-seeded Spaniard Marcel Granollers 2-6, 6-3, 7-5. Thiem trailed 3-5 in the final set but stormed back to take the final four games and saved one match point to knock off the higher-seeded Granollers.

The trend carried over into Wednesday when the second (Fabio Fognini), fifth (Mikhail Youzhny), sixth (Thomaz Belucci, who replaced Roberto Bautista-Agut), ninth (Fernando Verdasco) and tenth (Guillermo Garcia-Lopez) seeds were all ousted. Five of the top 10 seeds were sent home in the second round on the same day, completely opening up the field for the top-seeded David Ferrer.

In fact, Ferrer and Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany are the only two players seeded in the top 10 still alive in the tournament. The third and fourth seeds, Tommy Robredo and Alexandr Dolgopolov respectively, were beaten on Thursday as well.

Ferrer avoided catching the upset bug on Thursday as he dueled with 16th seeded Andreas Seppi. The top seed faced no issues despite dropping the second set, and ripped nine aces as his serve led the way into the quarterfinals. He will next play his fellow countryman Pablo Andujar, who knocked off German Dustin Brown in their third-round bout Thursday.

The final match of the day from Germany featured the seventh-seeded Kohlschreiber and France’s Gilles Simon as Kohlschreiber will look to reach the quarterfinals in his home country.


Long Island Tennis Magazine Staff
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