Houston

[Robbin92]

After losing Houston's final last year in a tight 3-setter against Inseedious I decided to sign up for this year's tournament with the feeling I had to make something right. I swapped Tomic for Melzer, noticed that the draw featured a lot of players who have more or less the similar level and after seeing it I was excited to start my tournament.

R16: Robbin def. iSniper 6-3 6-4

My first match in the tournament was against one of the most promising players on court at this moment: iSniper. I expected a really close and tough battle as he showed great level in sets versus the best players on the game. Once in the match I think I got an early break. At 4-2 he missed 7 break points to get the break back. Perhaps affected by so many missed chances I made out the set without any more struggles. In the second set I got an early break, but relaxed to much and iSniper this time was more clutch: his first break point evened the second set at 4-4. I told myself I had to focus again and was a bit lucky to break him right away in the next game as he made some errors. I managed to close the match at my first match point. iSniper and I have to play again in Monte Carlo (Nadal-Fognini) and I am sure he will highly motivated to take revenge.

QF: Robbin def. Mikefare 6-2 6-4

This match felt a bit slow and I was able to reach a lot of Querrey's attacks. Therefore it was no real suprise that I took the first set pretty fast with a double break difference. In the second set Mike mixed up his patterns some more but I was able to place a deciding break somewhere halfway the second set.

SF: Robbin def. Sexysova 6-4 6-4

In the semi-final I had to face the biggest surprise of the tournament: Sexysova, who had managed to beat Pigro (of whom I lost in AO) and Uchiha Muss. I remembered from the exhibition courts that Sexysova was very good in returning my second service. As this exhibition already was a few weeks/months ago I was curious to see how much the rest her game improved. Sexysova started better than me and I was under pressure from the beginning of the match. However, I only faced one break point in the entire match and was not broken once. The longer the match lasted, the more confident I became and I played some mixed patterns to break Sexysova circle dancing rhythm. It was a nice semi-final and I think Sexysova will do a lot more damage to big players in the future.

Final: Robbin def. Karse 4-6 7-5 6-3

In the final I had to face another promising prospect: Karse using Dodig. I had impressed myself in my warm-up by winning pretty easily against Dodig IC4, but Karse was far more unpredictable than the Incredible CPU. He used some unconventional tactics: taking a few steps out wide before serving, running in circles, and anticipating/guessing right a lot of times in the first set. He did put pressure on my service from the beginning while I had problems adapting his service positioning and placement. He broke me at I think 3-3 and he easily held till 5-4. There I created +-5 break points but was not able to bring the ball back in the court I think. He hit 3 aces in a row from 40-A to take a 1-0 set lead.

In the second set played continued in the same fashion: I was dominating most points but he managed to anticipate in the right way at the right moment to break me at 3-3. He hold his service and got a 5-3 lead. Here I faced 1 match point which I worked away with a solid 1-2 punch. I raised intensity more and was even able to win 4 games in a row to win the set 7-5. In the third set I wanted to make a quick break and continue momentum, but I did not break until 2-2 I think. Had some more chances on a double break but in the end one break proved to be enough.

Once again I am happy to win a tournament while so many new promising players have entered the tour. I think that I am the only one who won 3 pro titles in all 3 seasons so far. Now I am looking forward to do damage in bigger tournaments again. Congrats to all my opponents in this tournament as you all were pretty tough nuts to crack!

[C4iLL]

This Karse seems good, congratulations