Photo: Juergen Hasenkopf
Marcos is through to the semi-finals at the BMW Open in Munich, after posting an impressive straight-sets win over the number four seed and 2007 champion Philipp Kohlschreiber, 6-3, 6-4 on Friday.
Marcos broke in the first game of the match and quickly pulled away to a 4-1. The German, whose preferred surface is clay, did not surrender the loss of the first set easily, though, and when Marcos served at 5-3 he was forced to save a break point. After alleviating the threat, Marcos then placed an excellent backhand right on the line to bring up set point, which he converted to give himself a one-set lead.
Mirroring the first set, Marcos also broke serve at the beginning of the second set. However, Kohlschreiber dug deep in front of his home crowd and broke Marcos’s serve for the first time in the match to level the set at 2-2.
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Marcos was undeterred, though, and continued to chip away at Kohlschreiber’s serve and the pressure told in the seventh game. Two successive forehand errors from the German gave Marcos two break points and the misery continued for Kohlschreiber as he dumped a forehand drop shot into the net to hand Marcos a 4-3 lead.
Marcos was denied on his first match point at 5-3 on Kohlscreiber’s serve and looked to be in trouble as he went down 0-40 when he served for the match at 5-4. However, some strong serving levelled the game up at deuce, and attacking play brought up Marcos’ second match point. He delivered a one-two punch with a serve followed by a smash to seal his place in the semi-finals after 84 minutes.
For a place in his first ATP World Tour clay-court final, Marcos will play top seed Marin Cilic after the Croatian defeated Nicolas Almagro 6-4, 6-7(2), 6-2 in the last of Friday’s quarter-finals.
Marcos will have the chance to avenge the loss he suffered to World No. 11 Cilic in the pair’s first meeting at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami earlier this year. The match will take place on Center Court on Saturday following the first semi-final between Mikhail Youzhny and Philipp Petzschner, which begins not before 1pm local time. Check out the full order of play here.
Stay tuned to www.baghdatis.com for all the latest news and photos from Munich.
Go, Marcos!
