Moya quells German opponent, moves into 2nd round

Two-time champion Carlos Moya of Spain survived a scare before rallying to win his first round match against Germany's Alexander Waske 7-6 (3) 6-3 in the Chennai Open ATP Tour tennis tournamenton Tuesday.

In earlier first round singles matches this evening, Boris Becker trained Bjorn Phau of Germany scored a 6-4 6-4 win in 89 minutes over Oliver Patience of France while sixth seeded Fabrice Santoro (France) made the second round when his rival David Skoch (Cze) conceded due to a niggling back problem after taking medical attention. Santoro was leading 3-0 when Skoch withdrew.

In another first round match,D avide Sanguinetti (Italy) won against Konstantinos Economidis (Greece) 6-4 6-3 in 72 minutes.

In the Moya-Waske match, the rivals started off trading breaks but the Spaniard, making his fourth appearance here, took sweet revenge for his 2002 loss in the ATP Tour Tokyo Open.

Moya, making his fourth appearance here, took a while to study Waske's game but the German proved tough and displayed great effort in coming to terms to take the set to a tie-break where Moya brought in his experience to clinch the issue.

With the crowd supporting him, Moya raised his game in the second set. Sending down 11 aces in the match, including three in the first set, Moya proved his superiority to wrap up the match in 79 minutes with two breaks in the second set.

First Published: Jan 02, 2007 20:48 IST