Bedene takes out Lopez

At 156, Aljaz Bedene’s ranking seems deceptively low.

For, he was once ranked as high as 71 and in 2013, on an outside court here, he ousted Stan Wawrinka in the quarterfinals and hustled Janko Tipsarevic in the semis.

In both matches he had shown, with mind and body in sync, he had top-50 potential.

But much of last year was lost to injuries even as his mind was preoccupied with talks of obtaining British citizenship.

On Thursday, it was a rediscovery of his old self as he limited Feliciano Lopez’s debut run at the Aircel Chennai Open to just one match by packing off the second seed 6-4, 6-4 in an hour and 25 minutes.

Lopez is one of the few practitioners of the art of serve-and-volley tennis. Even on relatively less hospitable surfaces — like the slow hard courts in Chennai — he is more than willing to practise it. But, for it to succeed, the game has to flow from the serve and against Bedene he just couldn’t get it right.

“Nothing was working for me today,” said Lopez. “My serve and volley didn’t. I was also not moving well from the baseline.”

The world No. 14 endured a tough opening phase. Bedene’s murderous inside-out forehand meant that Lopez had to either find success with the body serve or drill it down the T.

In the first few service games he did neither. Yet, his instinct pushed him towards the net and he found himself wrongly positioned. A break for Bedene in Lopez’s second service game was its end result.

Lopez did show glimpses of how good his service can be, when, serving at 2-4, he followed up a body serve with two down the T and one service winner. Unfortunately, he could not keep it up.

Much of the time was spent remonstrating with himself. He missed routine backhand slices and his forehand lacked sufficient power.

If he had expected his fortunes to turn in the second, he was disappointed as the Slovene broke serve in the very first game, and as an add-on upped his level remarkably. In the five games the 25-year-old won on serve, he lost only five points.

The last few service exchanges just seemed customary before a netted backhand slice from Lopez ended matters.

Earlier, in the first match of the day, the Spanish third seed Roberto Bautista Agut defeated Peter Gojowczyk of Germany 6-3, 6-2.

The match was far closer than the flattering scoreline.

The world No. 15 was broken in both sets, saw his first serves go awry and endured trouble with foot-faults throughout. But his near-perfect stroke placement on crucial points saw him through.

Topsy-turvy affair

In doubles, Leander Paes and Raven Klaasen won an entertaining three-set contest against Mahesh Bhupathi and Saketh Myneni 1-6, 6-1, 10-7.

“It was topsy-turvy and more mental than tactical,” said Paes.

“And credit to Mahesh for playing so well in spite of not having had a full season.”

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