Summer in the States 2012 #7

In Winnetka, Chicago for the $50,000 Challenger tournament, where Greg was fortunate on two accounts, firstly to have snuck into the main draw as the last acceptance and secondly to have avoided a seeded player and drawn a qualifier in the first round, as a result having an extra days practise before taking to the court for his match on Tuesday. For his first match on hard court since before his injury in March, the temperature was in the high twenties on a wam Chicago day.

Ante Pavic

His opponent in the first round was 23 year-old Croatian Ante Pavic, currently ranked 502 with a high rank of  426. Another USA College player, Pavic had the benefit of three matches under his belt, but Greg should be confident of getting a good result in the match.
In the first set Greg had Pavic at deuce a couple of times on Pavic's serve and managed to bring up break point a couple of times, but Pavic managed to hang on and, with Greg holding his serve comfortably, games went with serve to the tie-breaker. Greg said Pavic was serving well and hitting the ball well and against the run of play got a mini-break in the tie-break and got to set-point, breaking Greg again to snatch the first set 7-6, winning the tie-break7-4.

Winnetka Centre Court

Annoyed at losing the tie-break Greg briefly lost focus and concentration at the beginning of the 2nd set and Pavic capitalised, breaking Greg on his first service game. Playing catch-up Greg was desperate to break Pavic's serve and get the break back, but Pavic belied his ranking, continuing to play at a high level and not fade away, frustrating Greg in the process. For his part Greg held serve comfortably for the rest of the set but was unable to break Pavic, losing the 2nd set 4-6 and a very close, frustrating match 6-7, 4-6.
Greg said he had perhaps been too passive in the match, expecting Pavic's to not continue playing at a high level, which he did, and should have been a bit more aggressive. Greg had played well, not making manu inforced errors but Pavic had hit more winners.
A disappointing loss which will add to Greg's current lack of confidence and make it tougher for him to close out close matches.
As an aside, Greg's good mate from Townsville, John-Patrick Smith, who had a record making three years of USA College tennis at Tennessee University, won the singles title at Winnetka, his maiden ATP Challenger title. Well done JP.