Irish Open: A fascinating tactical battle between youth and experience is set to decide the Shelbourne Men's Irish Open championship this afternoon at Fitzwilliam.
Mitcha Zverev, an 18-year-old German, and Kristian Pless, a 24-year-old Dane, are the worthy combatants following yesterday's semi-finals.
Zverev was the the world's number two under-18 player a little over a year ago - and is European Junior champion and a Junior Davis cup winner with Germany.
Pless has been hovering just inside and outside the top 100 in the world rankings for some years now.
Zverev favours the serve-volley game and his mature application saw off the challenge of Italy's all-court player Uros Vico. Having lost the first set 4-6, Zverev reeled off the next seven games with panache to level the match at 1-1 and lead a game up in the third set.
With three breaks of service, Zverev claimed the third 6-0 - and, after a plethora of break-points in the final set, finally closed the match 4-6, 6-0, 6-3.
Pless's very impressive hardhitting game got the better of Britain's Richard Bloomfield.
"He was the better player and has beaten me before in Southampton over three tie-break sets," remarked Bloomfield, after shipping many break points for a 6-4, 7-5 defeat in just over the hour.
Singles Semi-finals: M Zverev (Ger) bt Uros Vico (Ita) 4-6 6-0 6-3, K Pless (Den) bt R Bloomfield (Brit) 6-4 7-5. Doubles: J Smit/M Van Haasteren (Ned) bt C Fleming/J Murray (Brit) 6-3 2-6 10-8.
