Kiranpal Pannu served first when he played sixth seed Zizou Bergs at the ATP Challenger tournament in Calgary this morning, the Belgian providing the first highlight with a beautiful backhand lob. A forehand into the net from Pannu on the next point gave away two break points, but Bergs returned both of those into the net. Pannu got the advantage with an ace down the middle, and Bergs’ next return went into the net as well. Bergs started with an ace, and held to love pretty easily before breaking Pannu’s serve after the New Zealander could save only the first two break points after a double fault took him to 0-40. Bergs did hit a fabulous cross-court backhand lob in the next game, but a double fault took him to 15-40, and he was forced to hit a backhand into the net to end a great rally on the next point.
They started the next game with a great 18 shot rally, which Bergs ended with a backhand over the baseline, but the first dispute over a line call came when Pannu hit a blistering backhand down the line. Bergs thought it had landed a fraction wide, and I must admit that my first impression was the same, but umpire Kai Koske said it had caught the line. Pannu dropped himself back to deuce when he hit a cross-court forehand volley into the tramlines, but got himself out of trouble by forcing Bergs into two backhand errors to finish the game. Bergs then had a comfortable hold before Pannu won the fantastic rally on the second point of his game with a fabulous inside-out backhand volley, but the problem was that he lost the other four points with unforced errors. Bergs held comfortably to reinforce the lead, and hit a beautiful cross-court backhand winner in the next game before serving out the set to love, finishing it after 39 minutes with an ace out wide.
The second set saw pretty comfortable holds through the first six games, the only real highlight being a fabulous inside-out forehand winner by Bergs on the way to winning the second game. The fourth game started with a couple of good rallies, but it was the ace on the third point which was controversial. Pannu was not impressed by the point being given, and the replay showed that the ball had clearly landed on the wrong side of the centre line. Pannu was taken to deuce in the seventh game when he was forced to hit a forehand volley into the net, but his next volley landed safely in court, and Bergs lost the great rally on the final point when he hit a backhand into the net. The shot of the match for me was Pannu’s fantastic backhand return down the line in the next game, where Bergs had to save a break point before holding serve again.
Pannu held comfortably before disputing another ace, and again it was straight down the middle. I had no problem with the direction of the serve, but Pannu claimed that it had landed long, and even went over and queried the line judge about her call. The ball was going away from the camera, which made it much harder to tell if it landed past the line. Bergs lost the next two points in any case, and that took him to deuce. He dumped a backhand into the net to give Pannu a set point, but saved it with a smash to win a great rally. He got the advantage after the second deuce with a forehand volley, and won the game when he forced Pannu to hit a backhand into the net at the end of a great rally.
Pannu was then forced to hit another backhand into the net when he served the next game, and that gave Bergs two break points. Pannu smashed away the winning volley to end the good rally on the first of them, but Bergs secured the break with a fabulous forehand volley down the left sideline to end another great short rally. All he had to do to win the match was hold serve, and he didn’t lose a point as he wrapped up the victory after an hour and 36 minutes with his 11th ace. The final score was 6-4, 7-5.