Tennis
Braunschweig Challenger: Dominant win for Balaji-Escobar in quarters
The duo took a straight-set win over the mixed pairing of Argentinian Guillermo Duran and Brazil's Marcel Demoliner.
Sriram Balaji in action at the first match of the Davis Cup Group-1 tie against Sweden. (File Photo: ATP)
Indian Olympic-bound tennis player Sriram Balaji and his Ecuadorian partner Gonzalo Escobar registered another dominating victory in the Braunschweig Challenger in Germany on Thursday.
They secured a straight-set (6-4, 6-2) win over the mixed pairing of Argentinian Guillermo Duran and Brazil's Marcel Demoliner in the quarterfinals of this ATP 125 challenger event.
Earlier, they claimed a dominant (6-3, 6-0) victory in the first round against the Bolivian pairing of Boris Arias and Federico Zeballos to progress to the quarterfinals.
The sloppy serving
The match started on a sloppy note with three consecutive service breaks in the first three games, giving the early lead to the Indian-Ecuadorian pair.
They capitalized on this advantage and halted the streak of breaks with a perfect hold, eventually taking the set 6-4. The second set was even more chaotic with a total of six service breaks.
The Argentine-Brazilian pair struggled to hold serve throughout the set, which played into Balaji and Escobar's hands despite conceding two breaks themselves.
Balaji and Escobar, entered the tournament as the top-seeded pairing, will now face the fourth-seeded duo of Matwe Middlekoop and Denys Molchanov in the semifinals tomorrow at 3:30 PM IST.
