Marcos’ tough times on court continued Monday as he was beaten by Carlos Berlocq, 6-2, 6-4 in the first round of the Topshelf Open in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. It was Marcos’ eighth successive first-round defeat on the ATP World Tour, and unfortunately came on his 28th birthday, but he remains confident that the hard work he and coach, Zeljko Krajan, are putting in on the practice court will eventually pay off.
The match was twice interrupted by rain: once at 2-2 in the first set and again with Marcos trailing by a break at 2-1 in the second set, but he said the weather did not adversely affect his performance.
“I’m going through tough times,” acknowledged Marcos. “Confidence-wise, head-wise, everything’s spinning when I’m on the court. I’m thinking very negatively on the court. It was a terrible match, I didn't even play the match until second rain delay. Then I started fighting a bit more, but he played also ok.
"We had a long talk,” said Marcos, talking about his post-match discussion with Krajan. “There's a lot of thingsI need to work on. In practice I’m playing good, but in my head I’m feeling the pressure and it makes me get so tight. I don’t perform the way I want to.
"Today was a terrible day. In practice I’m playing so good and I want to do everything perfect on the court. I am putting too much pressure on myself. I need to fight and win some matches and just focus on that, not trying to play perfectly all the time.”
Marcos will now travel to Wimbledon, where hopefully his previous successes can inspire him to turn his form around. He reached the semi-finals in 2006 and was also a quarter-finalist in 2007. In the past two years he has reached the third round at The Championships, losing only to Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
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