© Tim Edwards
Rios Trips Up Again
What appeared to be an brief dip in form now looks like a fully-blown slump. Marcelo Rios, the runaway No.1 on the Merrill Lynch Tour of Champions, lost his second consecutive match in straight sets at the Kia Champions Trophy and will now not appear at all on finals day in Frankfurt.
He was beaten 7-6(4), 6-3 by Goran Ivanisevic, who registered his first ever victory over the Chilean.
“Finally I beat him after all these years,” said a relieved Ivanisevic.
“I was happy when I broke him in the second set and held on to win because I was a little bit nervous. I wanted to win and I served unbelievable.”
The first set was close throughout and it took some inspired play from Ivanisevic to triumph.
As he sealed the set, a disgruntled Rios threw his racquet the full width of the court. It bounced in front of his chair, and then into the player’s box, hitting doubles showman Mansour Bahrami. Bahrami handed the racquet back to Rios, who received a code violation from the umpire – a rare occurrence on the Merrill Lynch Tour of Champions.
Ivanisevic walloped down 22 aces for the second successive day and now meets either John McEnroe or Carl-Uwe Steeb in Sunday’s final.
For Rios, it will be a case of going back to the drawing board before the BlackRock Masters in London.
He revealed that he plans to join Thomas Muster in Graz for a two-man training camp ahead of the event at the Royal Albert Hall (5th – 10th December).
“There are no indoor courts in Chile, so I will go to Graz with Thomas to train. I want to win the (BlackRock) Masters,” said Rios.
“These last two results show you that everyone is playing better, everyone is getting fitter and Goran is really tough indoors. Losing yesterday was a really weird feeling after winning six tournaments in a row, but after today I am getting used to it.”
Matches are played over the best of three sets with the third set taking the form of a Champions’ Tie-Break where the first player to reach ten points, and lead by two clear points, is the winner.
The tournament is played over a round-robin format with the top player in each group meeting in Sunday’s final.
The BlackRock Masters sees the top ten players in the South African Airways Champions Tour Rankings compete for a $100,000 winners’ prize. The field at the Royal Albert Hall in London will increase to 12 with the addition of two wild card invitations.
