Baker survives Pole’s killer serve
America’s Brian Baker is used to making comebacks.
He is once again on the circuit after spending six years out injured and last night at the Heineken Open he achieved a superb come-from-behind win to beat Jerzy Janowicz 4-6 7-6 6-4 in 2 hours 17 minutes.
Janowicz, the fifth seed, is one of the most hyped-up men’s tennis players because of a stunning Paris Masters last November, where he came through qualifying and made it to the final, beating five top-20 players along the way.
But in the gale-force conditions in Auckland last night, Janowicz met his match.
The Pole has a huge serve, regularly sending down bombs at 230kmh, but Baker was outstanding at returning.
While he didn’t have the power to serve as quickly as Janowicz, he used precision placement to win points.
Janowicz’s best tennis came in the first set and he got a break in the fifth game as both players were still trying to cope with the strong crosswinds.
But Baker was able to put some pressure on the giant Pole’s serve later in the set, although he was unable to get the break back and stop Janowicz going one set up.
Baker went close to taking the second set when Janowicz was
Victor down 0-40 at 5-6, but he managed to put in some big serves to hold the game.
However, Baker took the tiebreak 7-5 to send the match late into the night.
Baker shot out to a 5-1 lead in the deciding set and it was 0-40 on Janowicz’s serve, only then the European started to play.
However, although he was able to win that game and save six more match points, eventually Baker got the point he needed to advance to the second round.
Afterwards, Baker said the key to the match was to play mentally tough.
‘‘I had so many chances in the match to break and get ahead, but I didn’t capitalise on them,’’ Baker said.
‘‘I was telling myself it just has to go my way and finally it did.
‘‘I knew if I could keep the matches to longer rallies and keep him at the back I would probably have some success. The key is get- ting his serve back and dealing with some of his unorthodox shots; he has got a lot of feel and can slap balls around from all areas of the court.
‘‘So I felt that if I could keep him deep and get enough balls in, that he would make some errors and I was able to do that for most of the third set until the end.’’
Meanwhile, late last night in the doubles, the New Zealanders Dan King-Turner and Michael Venus lost in the super tiebreak against the top seeds Colin Fleming from Britain and Brazil’s Bruno Soares, with the score 2-6 7-6 10-7.