TENNIS ATP BASEL – 17 year old Borna Coric won his second round match against Andrey Golubev 6-4, 6-4 to set up a quarter final clash with Rafael Nadal. Milos Raonic lost a set in his match against Donald Young. Roger Federer won his second round match against Denis Istomin 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Borna Coric is just 17 years old, but he is the talk of Basel today as he backed his first round win against sixth seed Ernests Gulbis with another straight sets win against Andrey Golubev. The prize for this excellent run will be a jump in the rankings as well as a quarter final match against world number 3 Rafael Nadal. The Croatian played a solid match converting three break points out of four to secure the win. The Croatian served well and only gave the player from Kazakhstan one break point, which Golubev converted.
“I played very well in both matches. I’m very happy with my game. I wasn’t getting nervous. It really feels good and it’s going to help me with my ranking. It’s a huge step for me.” said Coric. He also spoke about tomorrow’s match against Nadal, “I think it’s going to be a great match. He’s an unbelievable tennis player. It’s a privilege to play against him. I hope I can play as best as I can and we’ll see what happens.”
Later in the day Milos Raonic survived a scare in the second set to beat Donald Young 6-4, 6-7(5), 7-6(2). The Canadian is fighting to qualify for the ATP Finals, but in the last few weeks he has slipped to two early defeats in Shanghai and Moscow due to illness. The two early exits meant that Raonic could not afford to lose in the second round of this Basel tournament. Young never managed to break the Canadian’s serve in the 2 hours and 19 minutes of play, but he did push his opponent to two tie-breaks.
Also Roger Federer dropped a set today just like the Canadian. The Swiss was playing Denis Istomin in a remake of last year’s second round match in Basel and just like last year the former wolrd number 1 dropped a set but qualified for the quarterfinals.
In the other matches Benjamin Becker reached the quarterfinals after Mikhail Kukushkin had to retire during the third set because of a shoulder injury. Also Ivo Karlovic reached the quarterfinals of the Basel Swiss Indoors after he defeated Kenny De Schepper 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-3.
