Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Juan Martin del Potro held on to beat Fernando Verdasco 6-4 3-6 7-6 (1) on Tuesday in his second round-robin match of the ATP World Tour Finals.
The fifth-ranked Argentine rebounded from his opening loss to Andy Murray,trading powerful forehands and accurate backhands with Verdasco throughout the match. But Del Potro did waste two match points in the third set before winning in the tie-breaker.
Late on Monday,Novak Djokovic rallied from a poor start to beat Nikolay Davydenko 3-6 6-4 7-5 and move closer to the knockout round. The third-ranked Serb was broken twice in the first set and grew increasingly frustrated before finding his stride at the end of the second,breaking decisively for a 5-4 lead. After failing to serve out the match at 5-4 in the decider,Djokovic broke again at love before clinching the win when the Russian sent a backhand return long.
Bhupathi-Knowles close to semis
Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles enhanced their semi-final chances after edging past Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski in a tough Group B match. The third-seeded Indo-Bahamian pair overcame a first-set lapse to beat the eighth seeds 3-6 6-3 10-7 in a battle that lasted one hour and 15 minutes. Bhupathi and Knowles are now on top of their group.
In the same group,Leander Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy were handed a shock straight-set defeat by Lukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach in their opening match. The fourth-seeded Indo-Czech pair went down 6-3 7-6 (3) to the sixth seeded Polish-Austrian duo in their opening match and will now be up against Bob and Mike Bryan,who also lost their opener 6-4 6-4 to Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram.
