Two things that stood out in Pavel Kotov's 2R win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina at Mallorca Open

Pavel Kotov of Russia stunned second seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain 2-6 6-3 6-4 in the second round of the Mallorca Open on Tuesday, 27th June. Kotov entered the main draw as a lucky loser and is currently ranked 527th in the world.

The 24-year-old will face Lloyd Harris of South Africa in the quarterfinal on Thursday, 29th June. The Russian will be looking to cause yet another upset against Harris and move up considerably in the rankings.

On that note, let us take a look at two things that stood out in the second round match:

#1. Davidovich Fokina’s powerful groundstrokes won him the first set:

The 24-year-old Spaniard dominated the first set with his formidable groundstrokes, with the Russian struggling to deal with them. Davidovic Fokina often played good approach shots before venturing forward to the net to finish points with volleys. His inside-out forehands put the Russian under a lot of pressure.

He broke the Russian in the third game of the first set and then held his serve to take a 3-1 lead. He then managed to break Kotov again in the set before serving out the set with ease.

Davidovich Fokina put a lot of pressure on the Russian’s second serve in the set and looked the odds-on favourite to win the match at that point.

#2. Kotov played the angles really well and made the Spaniard play more off his backhand:

However, the Russian had other ideas as he managed to reverse the tide with his intelligent approach. He played the angles really well to move the Spaniard from side to side and also took the risk of playing down-the-line shots to the open court.

The Russian broke the Spaniard in the fourth game of the second set to take a 3-1 lead and then held his serve to extend it to 4-1. He then maintained the lead to win the set and draw level. In the third set, too, the Russian got the decisive break of serve in the third game and then went on to seal the deal.

The Russian won less than half of the points on his second serve in the match, but Davidovich Fokina could win only 54% of the points on his first serve to help the Russian’s cause.