Fourth seed Denis Shapovalov of Canada beat qualifier Antoine Bellier of Switzerland 6-4 7-5 in a second round match at the Stockholm Open on Wednesday. Shapovalov will play his quarterfinal match on Friday.
The match lasted for almost two hours as the 23-year-old Canadian proved to be the better player in the end. He thus also stayed in hunt for his first title of the season.
We will now take a look at the two keys to the match:
Two keys to Denis Shapovalov’s win Over Antoine Bellier at the Stockholm Open
#1. Shapovalov took an early lead and then held on to it in the first set:
Shapopvalov was off to a great start to the match, getting a break of serve in the very first game. He hit a wonderful return winner off his backhand to get the break and never lost his serve in the match.
Bellier was on the receiving end of Shapovalov’s powerful groundstrokes for the majority of the match. Moreover, his return of serve was also not powerful enough to get him a break of serve.
#2. Shapovalov kept his nose ahead in the second set as Bellier rushed the net more often:
Realizing that he would not be able to contend with Shapovalov in the baseline exchanges, Bellier started approaching the net more often in the second set. However, the Canadian then came up with brilliant passes and lobs to stun the Swiss.
Morover, Shapovalov also hit his forehands deep to push Bellier further back from the basleine and thus never allowed the latter to dominate rallies from the baseline. The Canadian managed to stay a break up in the second set, too, and won the match convincingly.
Beliier could win only 47% of the points on his second serve against Shapovalov’s 70%. The Canadian was also the more aggressive of the two, hitting 28 winners against Bellier’s 19 and ended up as the deserving winner.
Main Photo from Getty.
