Mumbai: 3rd seed Tomas Berdych has defeated Stefan Koubek of Austria in straight y (7-6, 6-2) to enter the final of the Kingfisher Open 2006.

Earlier it was said that it was the battle between the third seed and world number 13 who was on a high and the man who had already upset two big seeds and is now looking to upset another. The first semi-final of the Kingfisher Open 2006 between Tomas Berdych (CZE) and Stefan Koubek (Austria) created great excitement in Mumbai.

The match with both men holding their serves comfortably and one thing that was pretty evident throughout the first few minutes was that Berdych was clearly able to generate more court speed and was coming to the court more often. Also, Berdych was able to hit the ball a lot harder from the back of the court which meant that the veteran from Austria would have to strategize a game plan to keep up with the fiery Berdych.

Berdych definitely didn’t look like the one who was going to lose his service game at this point of time in the match. Both players off some red hot victories just twenty four hours back were both refusing to attack the ball and net more and were waiting for each other to create the mistakes. Berdych had the big booming serve that the Austrian had to contend with.

Finally in the eighth game it looked like there would be a break of serve when Berdych took a few visits to the net to counter the Austrian, but Koubek still prevailed with the game as a result of a few quick aces. The two players had tied horns at four games a piece.

Fifteen minutes later and still nothing had changed as both players managed to hold their serves comfortably and the set was tied at five games a piece. The next game saw a terrific rally which saw both players spring up a step or two for the first time and come to the net more often. Koubek came very close to breaking the Czech but Berdych came up with a huge serve to finish the game and still hold serve (6-5 lead).

It looked pretty ominous that the first set would be decided on a tiebreaker unless Berdych does something special. And it did go into a tiebreaker after neither players managed to break.

Berdych was running away with the tiebreaker very early after two great serves and one superb backhand of the backcourt which helped him take an early advantage. It eventually helped him take the first set by seven games to six.

The second set had begun and in an unexpected turn of events, Berdych broke Koubek’s serve in the very first game. This gave Berdych a very early advantage in the set. And it did appear to be the defining moment early in the set as Koubek didn’t put a foot wrong in his next two service games, holding his serves very comfortably but was still 2-3 down to Berdych who was getting ready to serve for a 4-2 lead. Berdych’s serve was yet to be broken in the match.

A few controversial calls in the seventh game meant that Koubek was arguing with the chair umpire and eventually lost the game and gave another break to the Czech. Now it meant that after one hour and nineteen minutes of play, Tomas Berdych was serving for the match.

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