Berdych closes in on London spot
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Shanghai Daily, November 9, 2011
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Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic returns the ball to Fernando Verdasco of Spain during their match in the Paris Tennis Masters tournament on?Tuesday, Nov.8, 2011. |
Czech Tomas Berdych was just one win from securing a place in the season-ending ATP World Tour finals after he dismissed Spain's Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 7-5 in the Paris Masters second round yesterday.
The fifth-seeded Berdych, who will book his ticket for the November 20-27 event in London if he reaches the quarterfinals, will next face either 11th seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia or American Alex Bogomolov Jr. Seven players are vying for one of the three remaining spots for the World Tour finals.
World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, who has pulled out of the Bercy tournament, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and David Ferrer have already qualified.
After an early trade of service breaks, world No. 23 Verdasco netted a forehand to hand Berdych a 5-3 lead in the opening set, wrapping it up by holding serve to love. He broke in the third and seventh games of the second set but Verdasco put up some resistance to claw it back to 5-5.
Berdych broke again in the 11th game before wrapping it up on his sixth match point with a backhand winner.
