CHENNAI: The crowd at the SDAT Tennis Stadium for top seed Marin Cilic’s match against qualifier Jozef Kovalik on Wednesday was less than the turnout for the Ramkumar Ramanathan-Yuki Bhambri match the day before.
Cilic was eventaully stunned by Kovalik, while Chennai’s favourite son Ramkumar too bit the dust, and organisers must have been in a quandary over to how to sustain interests of fans. This has not been the case when the tournament started. People used to scramble for tickets and almost every seat in the stadium used to be occupied. The romance of watching Rafael Nadal, Carlos Moya and to an extent, Stan Wawrinka seems to have waned. The crowd turnout, especially to watch Cilic on Wednesday is quite a shocker and of course disappointing. Organisers are now pinning hopes on the five Indian doubles pairs.
“It was a shock for us, no one expected a player of Cilic’s class to crash out. It’s certainly a dampener, but Yuki is still there, and we have quite a few guys in doubles, with Leander Paes leading the pack. Hope they do well,” said a key member of the organising committee.
In the biggest upset of the tournament, Croatian World No 6 Cilic was knocked out in the second round by Kovalik in a marathon match that took three sets and lasted two hours and 48 minutes, thus sending shockwaves into the stands. Cilic lost 7-6, 5-7, 7-5 to the World No 117. And Kovalic said it was a special feeling. “It’s a great feeling to beat Cilic. The win was possible due to the good mental and physical shape I was in,” the 24-year-old said.
Kovalik said that since he did not have anything to lose, he went all out. “I just concentrated on each ball, and tried to win each and every point. There was no pressure on me, so I went flat out,” opined Kovalik.
Cilic struggled with his serve to begin with, and seemed mentally exhausted, as he was stretched by a rookie. This gave Kovalik an opportunity to go for the kill and try to make it his day.
“Kovalik played well today. His returns were spot on. I did not return well in the first set,” noted Cilic.
“After the second set, I got some momentum. At 5-all in the third set, I should’ve been a little more aggressive. Guess it was lack of concentration,” summed up the Croatian.
“This win gives me the confidence to beat top players. Cilic was not up to his best here, and he wasn’t his usual self today,” added Kovalic.
ashok.v@newindianexpress.com