Tuesday review by Goran Ivanišević
A tournament with such a quality needs just a little luck which comes in the form of success of local players. And that is why it was important for Borna Ćorić to pass the first obstacle easily. Borna may not have played his best tennis against Marcel Granollers, but he is a very inconvenient tennis player, who played pretty well. He can do better, but for the opening of the tournament it was very satisfactory.
It is difficult to open the tournament when you know you're playing against the biggest local hope and we often forget that Borna is only 18 and a half years old. However, he once again showed that he is made of solid material. In the second round he will play against Aljaž Bedene, we saw him already playing against Mate Delić. He can be inconvenient especially when he serves well, however at this year's tournament he will not have one easy match.
Toni Androić, however, failed. Although Joao Sousa came after the Davis Cup, Toni did not take his chance. He needs more such kind of matches for his experience and in order to push his confidence. Sometimes he was forcing his game too much, asking too much from himself.
Looking at the other matches, I was impressed by Philipp Kohlschreiber and Damir Džumhur. Kohlschreiber played phenomenal tennis and he proved it by easily beating the unpleasant Giralda who likes to play on clay, while Džumhur took chance of the fact that Rosol was bothered by the great heat and also that he does not like the slow Umag clay too much. Monfils offered us at the end a show in doubles, but we are waiting for Thursday and his match against Bastian Trinker. Respect to the Austrian, even though I am a little bit sorry that Misha Youzhny cannot find his form this season...
