Bedene storms into the final

There is something cavalier about Aljaz Bedene’s persona. In the way he approaches the game on court and in the manner he speaks off it. It often borders on nonchalance. It can well be misconstrued for arrogance, but on the day, when it comes off, there is no better sight.

Saturday was one such day. After two hours and 42 minutes of marvellous tennis, and four match points saved, he became the first qualifier to reach the final of the Aircel Chennai Open, beating Spanish third seed Roberto Bautista Agut. 

He will meet defending champion Stan Wawrinka in Sunday’s final. The top seed came through 7-5, 6-3 against Belgian fourth seed David Goffin in a tight affair. “I am not someone who waits for the opponent’s mistakes,” Bedene said after the 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(8) win. “And, it has worked. So far, so good.”

In Bautista Agut, he had an opponent in the typical Spanish grinder’s mould, whose game gives an impression of an iterative method to solve mathematical problems, where one obtains successive approximations to the solution itself.

This was evident in the way Agut pinned Bedene to his backhand through monotonous crosscourt exchanges, shifted position with each shot until Bedene was almost beyond the tramlines and was forced into an error.

While the match saw much action, often going back and forth, this was essentially the contest — of Agut trying to exploit Bedene’s backhand and the Slovenian finding a way out of it.

The start of the match was erratic. There were five breaks of serve in the first six games. But Agut’s three holds came at a loss of just two points and won him the first set 6-3.

In the second, Bedene recovered. He went 3-1 up by playing first-strike tennis, changing direction frequently and pulling the trigger with his inside-out forehand. The two then traded breaks before Bedene’s final two holds — both tight two-deuce affairs — gave him the set and squared the match.

In the third, it was Agut’s turn to march ahead 3-1. But a Bedene comeback always loomed and true to the pattern in the previous sets, the set was soon levelled at 3-3. 

From thereon, it should have ideally been Bedene’s home stretch. He twice had Agut at 0-30 on the latter’s serve — at 3-3 and 4-4. But he fluffed both chances. Then, in the tie-break, at 5-4, he had the match on his racquet. This was spurned too. 

He had to wait for his second match point at 9-8 to take the contest, not before Agut had four shots at the match — twice on Bedene’s serve at 4-5 and twice in the tie-break.

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