Ferrer adds to Classic’s woes
What began as a dream day for ASB Classic organisers has got off to a horror start after third seed David Ferrer followed defending champion Roberto Bautista-Agut out of the tournament.
Just a few hours after BautistaAgut pulled out due to a stomach virus, Ferrer suffered a 2-6 6-4 7-6 defeat to Dutchman Robin Haase.
After being down a break early in the third set, the veteran Spaniard, a four-time champion in Auckland, immediately hit back to set up a tiebreak.
But instead of his experience coming to the fore when it mattered most, he made a crucial unforced error on serve to hand Haase the advantage and he closed out the match to cap a brilliant fightback.
‘‘I did a mistake with my forehand, an easy mistake and well, tennis is that, and it’s very important to [hold] concentration,’’ Ferrer said. ’’He served very well in the third set. The court is fast and it’s not easy to break but I didn’t return so well.
‘‘It was a close match and in the important moments he served better than me.’’
The result continues a poor build-up to the Australian Open for Ferrer following a secondround defeat to little-known Aussie Jordan Thomson at the Brisbane International last week.
‘‘Tomorrow night I go to Melbourne and I will try as soon as possible to forget this match and
will be focused with the Grand Slam,’’ he added.
The world No 21 was one of the top four seeds playing their first match yesterday after receiving a first-round bye. That dropped to three before the start of play following Bautista-Agut’s decision to withdrawal. But the early signs were promising for Ferrer, who did not concede a single break point to take the first set.
But at 34, the legs don’t move as fast as they used to and the 58thranked Haase ground his way back into the contest by running Ferrer around the court.
Haase insisted, though, that was not his initial strategy.
‘‘If you know David Ferrer, he likes to run so that’s not the right game plan,’’ he said. ’’But of course, in the end it’s always better to let someone run than let you have to run all the time but that for sure was not my game plan.’’
Haase, who beat New Zealand’s Finn Tearney in the first round, will meet Portugal’s Joao Sousa in the quarterfinals after he cruised past British qualifier Brydan Klein 6-3 6-4.
Taiwan’s Yen-Hsun Lun won a three-set thriller against rising Russian star Karen Khachanov on Tuesday but he couldn’t repeat his heroics yesterday and was knocked out by seventh-seed Steve Johnson, 6-4 7-6.
On the Grandstand court, the Kiwi pairing of Rubin Statham and Tearney suffered a 5-7 5-7 defeat to second seeds Dominic Inglot and Florin Mergea in the first round of the doubles.