Number 1 seed Bernard Tomic defeated Roberto Carballes 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 to book his place in the quarter finals of the Ecuador Open, where he will face Paolo Lorenzi.
The Australian, who surprised many with his choice of playing in Ecuador, didn’t seem up for the battle against his Spanish opponent. Tomic didn’t seem to worried when he was down or too enthusiastic when he was up. Whereas Carballes, who is ranked 129 in the world and therefore still fighting every week to survive financially, was looking for the biggest win in his career and also a big paycheck (the difference between losing in the second round and the quarter finals is $5,500).
Tomic is clearly the better tennis player but Carballes (aged 22) is an old-school Spanish claycourter with a deceivingly big serve who will surely crack the top 100 sooner rather than later. So when the Australian raced away to a 5-1 lead and thought he could cruise to a first set win, he was shown otherwise and eventually sealed it at 6-3.
In the second set, the Australian once again seemed like he didn’t want to be in Quito and that he just couldn’t be bothered getting through another day in the office. He didn’t sprint once and played some volleys like a 14 year-old kid at school who still thinks it’s cool not to try, the pick of the bunch being a straightforward smash at set-point down which flew straight into the advertising boards.
Tomic did just about enough in the third set as the Aussie was probably aware that it was down to him who would win the match. He trundled over the finish line although you get the feeling he would have been much happier flying back home.
Paolo Lorenzi awaits in the quarter final after he defeated Alejandro Falla 6-3, 6-2 and the Italian will provide another irritatingly stern challenge for Tomic. The other defined quarter final match-up will pit together Thomaz Bellucci and Pablo Carreño after they overcame two Spaniards: Albert Montañes (6-2, 6-4) and Iñigo Cervantes (6-7, 7-6, 6-2) respectively.
After winning his marathon clash, Carreño complained that “the sun disturbed me a bit and there was quite a lot of wind. It’s difficult enough playing at this altitude and with wind it’s much tougher. But I tried to be patient and calm to not drift away from the match”.
