06.06.2018 16:04:06 | Adam Pavlásek battled for the quarter final with tenacious Jaume Munar for almost three hours. It seemed that the Czech would follow the same recipe like on Tuesday when he frustrated the second seeded Uruguayan Cuevas by his level-headed game. He broke the Spaniard’s serve at 2:2 and then took the lead to 4:2. However, Munar turned the match around in three games to 5:4 and Pavlásek had to level up to 5:5. He broke the Spaniard’s serve again and so did Muran– 6:6. Pavlásek eventually won the tiebreak like he had previously always done at MONETA Czech Open.
In the second set, Pavlásek lost his serve and Munar was leading 3:1, 5:2. However, Pavlásek’s time was still to come and he reduced his opponent’s lead to 4:5. However, it was about all he could do. He eventually lost the set 4:6. In the last set, Pavlásek was leading 3:2 and broke the Spaniard’s serve to 4:2 and saved his to 5:2. Pavlásek was serving for the match at 5:3 but did not convert it. The Spaniard got a chance to level up and he took it. Then, Pavlásek surprisingly lost his serve and more experienced Muran controlled the match till the end. It was a great pity because Pavlásek had the upper hand especially in the third set, but he did not take the chance. “It was up and down. Unlike in the previous match, I couldn’t rely on my serve this time. You can’t play without a serve these days. If you don’t have a serve, you’d better get ready for a tough battle,“ said Palásek after the match and his words were proved by the final set. The Czech Davis Cup representative was leading 5:3 and 30:15 on his serve. However, he still did not brink the match to a successful end. “I had to play actively and, as a result, made some errors. I made a bad decision in an important moment and the opponent got back into the match. However, my main problem was the first serve. It often didn’t land in the court which caused my problems during the course of the game,“ said Pavlásek.
Zdeněk Kolář did not advance among the last eight either. He lost to Federico Gaio of Italy. The Czech has a negative balance with him, he did not win any of the three matches he has played against him. “The Italian played very well. I’d like to forget the match very as soon as possible,“ said Kolář after the match which had two weird halves. First, the Italian won two games at 5:5 and won the first set 7:5. Then he added six games in a row 7:5, 6:0.
