The Hindu : Mazur emerges giantkiller

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 03, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Mazur emerges giantkiller

By Vijay Parthasarathy

— Photo: M. Moorthy

MAKING HIS PRESENCE FELT: Dimitriy Mazur of Uzbekistan, who beat top-seeded Todor Enev.

CHENNAI, MARCH 2. Todor Enev looked drained halfway through his singles match at the Nungambakkam Stadium on Tuesday morning. Sweat dripped from his forehead; his face was flushed pink. He took several swigs from his water bottle. He kicked a ball in deep emotion after the fifth game, and earned a code-violation warning for his efforts.

But don't be fooled. It wasn't an epic; not by a stretch. Enev, the top seed at the TNTA-ITF Futures tournament, lost the first set 0-6 in approximately 20 minutes.

Had she caught sight of his drenched apparel during the changeover, Enev's mother might have clicked her tongue in disapproval, and suggested a change of shirt.

In hindsight, he might as well have changed his shoes. Or his racquet, if you like. It wouldn't have mattered. The Bulgarian lost to his opponent, Dmitriy Mazur - a qualifier - in straight sets, 6-0, 6-2.

Admittedly, the first round match wasn't as easy for the unseeded right-hander from Uzbekistan, as the scoreline might suggest. It was, in fact, easier.

And if you thought things couldn't get worse for the organisers, more was to follow: second seed Orest Tereshchuk of Ukraine was forced to give up midway through his match due to an upset stomach. He retired at 6-4, 1-5 against Rainer Eitzinger, a player ranked nearly 350 places below him.

When the top two seeds of a tournament fall in the first round — as they did here on Tuesday — there is the obvious temptation to go overboard. So perhaps, we need a reality check.

World No. 865 Dmitriy Mazur defeated his opponent, the World No. 298, Todor Enev today; while Orest Tereshchuk, ranked 357th in the world, was forced to retire midway through his game.

While that may lead you to question the rationale of ranking players who perform below a certain degree of consistency, the fact remains the top seed could have put up a tougher fight today.

Last week, in their second round match of the Delhi leg of the ITF Futures, Mazur had blanked Enev in the first set; only to lose 6-0, 2-6, 3-6. No such script was prepared for Tuesday morning. This was one of those blink-and-you-might-miss-it performances.

Enev was broken almost as soon as he walked on court, in the very first game of the match. And for kicks, Mazur broke him again in the third and fifth game.

One set down, and Enev found himself in a repeat position. At this point he might have retained his optimism, and thought he could still pull off a victory.

As if to reaffirm the faith, he took the first game of the second set at love. The third game, however, changed things a bit. Enev stood watching, as two spectacular passes kissed the line. The break of serve shifted the momentum back towards Mazur. Mazur took his next service game at love to make it 5-1.

The visibly tired top seed made one last stand: he stretched his final service game to three deuces, before ending it with an ace. It was the longest game of the match.

Pity then, all that energy was wasted, merely to set up an anti-climax. The Uzbekistani added the finishing touches with an ace and a perfect forehand cross-court volley. Fifty four minutes was all it took.

Enev later hinted that his performance — like Tereshchuk's — had suffered greatly due to an upset stomach. "The past two nights I've had big trouble sleeping; my stomach hurts a lot. Also I couldn't take the heat today; it made me totally tired," he said.

Kedriouk beats Sridhar

That leaves fourth-seeded Alexey Kedriouk as the highest ranked player in the singles draw of the tournament, after he pulled off a dramatic 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory over local lad Vinod Sridhar.

Out there on court 2, the right-hander from Kazakhstan looked every inch the temperamental artist. He stood impatiently with his brush and palette, waiting to paint brash, vivid strokes against his opponent's serve. His language, incidentally, was equally colourful.

This was perhaps, the match of the day: both players matched each other serve for serve, pass for pass, volley for volley, after a rather lacklustre first set.

The second set was absorbing, with both players breaking the other's serve. In the final set Kedriouk broke the left-handed Sridhar's serve in the crucial eighth game, to go 5-3 up. He finally took the match after nearly an hour and 30 minutes.

The results:

Singles: Dimitriy Mazur (Uzb) bt Todor Enev (Bul) 6-0, 6-2; Alexey Kedriouk (Uzb) bt Vinod Sridhar (Ind) 1-6, 7-5, 6-3; Rainer Eitzinger (Aut) bt Orest Tereshchuk (Ukr) 4-6, 5-1 (conceded).

Doubles: Dousan Karol (Cze)/Patrick Schmolzer (Aut) bt Rohan Bopanna/Vijay Kannan (Ind) 6-3, 5-7, 6-3; Markus Egger/Rainer Eitzinger (Aut) bt Nitin Kirtane/Punna Vishaal (Ind) 6-3, 6-3; Xin-Yuan Yu/Yu Wang (Chn) bt Kamala Kannan/Vinod Sridhar (Ind) 6-2, 5-7, 6-3; Ajay Ramaswami/Sunil Kumar Sipaeya (Ind) bt Tai-Wei Liu (Tpe)/Yew-Ming Si (Mas) 6-4, 6-2; Mustafa Ghouse/Vishal Uppal (Ind) bt Karim Maamoun (Egy)/Noikazu Sugiyama (Jpn).

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