.@Goffin_Officiel Gobbles Up Competition @Sport1Open
Chris de Waard, Tennis East Coast
Quarterfinal Friday in Scheveningen wasn’t a good day for people hoping to see tough battles and long matches, with all winners coming through after routine victories. The day started with seventh seed Andreas Beck taking on Matteo Viola. The crafty Italian is a pleasure to watch because of his intelligent game and well-timed dropshots, but Beck never seemed like losing the match as he went through to the semi-final with a 6-4 6-4 victory. Nevertheless, this turned out to be the most hard-fought match of the day, as the other matches were even less close.
Dutch hope Jesse Huta Galung took on his doubles partner for the week, Martin Fischer. Huta Galung quickly got on top of the match, as he dominated Fischer and never gave him time to get into the match. Fischer helped him out at the important moments of the match, as he racked up a lot of errors, prompting the normally so gentle Austrian to even angrily throw his racquet on the ground at one point. Highlight of the match was the game Huta Galung took down at 4-1 in the first set, as he needed more than ten deuces to finally do so, with the game lasting almost twenty minutes. Huta Galung kept his run and the hope of defending his title alive, 6-1 6-4.
Up next was David Goffin, who took on Aleksandr Nedovyesov. Goffin has looked like the best player of the tournament all week long and again easily disposed of his opponent, 6-4 6-2. Nedovyesov played an interesting style of wild ball-bashing and drop-shotting, which didn’t work out as he was wildly impatient, feeding his unforced error count to worrying heights. He seemed displeased by his performance as well, constantly talking to himself, smashing his racquet and getting angry with the crowd.
The day ended with Souza taking out Zeballos 6-3 6-3, as the latter clearly had not recovered from his previous matches. In my earlier report, I posted a video of the state he was in after ousting Schwartzman in the previous round, which didn’t bode too well for the remainder of his stay at the tournament. This turned out to be correct, as he was just a step too slow at all times and clearly has some fitness work to do if he wants to return to old form.
The semi-final line-up must have been a dream for the organization, as it included a Dutchman, two players from neighboring countries who were formerly in the top 50 and one interesting exotic player from Brazil.
As the day started it looked like it was heading towards the same lopsidedness as the previous day, as Goffin absolutely hammered Huta Galung 6-0 6-1. Goffin played a perfect match, but Huta Galung didn’t seem as explosive as usual and it’s probable that he was feeling the effects of a leg injury he attracted earlier this week, as evidenced by the protective tape he was wearing. A point early in the second set summarized the match, as Huta Galung managed to hit an easy smash in such a manner that it bounced on his side of the court first. The second semi-final between Beck and Souza seemed to follow a similar pattern as Beck went down 2-6 *0-2, but he regained composure, started to find his range and fought back to turn around the match and notch up a 2-6 6-3 6-4 victory.
Goffin was heading into the final as a clear favorite and he didn’t disappoint. Beck was simply outclassed as the Belgian easily took him down in straight sets, 6-3 6-2. An impressive run by Goffin, not dropping a single set, and an important one, as this result puts him back into the top 100 at the 85th spot, a rise of 21 places. Beck made a jump as well, gaining ground on a top 100 spot with a rise of thirteen spots to the 118th ranking position. All in all, and despite the lack of epic matches in the final stages, this has been a great tournament with a well deserved winner in David Goffin. Until next year!