Van Der Merwe tried his quick game: serve&volleys, net approaches even on return. But Becker was too solid from baseline for him and served also very well. In the 1st set the South African managed to hold his service games: his 1st serve was working very well and with a good percentage, he managed to come back from 15-40 in the 11th game. In the tiebreak 3 very bad mistakes (2 on Becker's serves) gifted the set to the German. Van Der Merwe couldn't come back after this disappointment and he got immediately broken in the 2nd set (with a double fault and 2 wrong volleys). His serve&volley was no more dangerous for Becker: the German was finding very good low returns on Van Der Merwe's feet which the tall South African guy wasn't able to handle. Benjamin was also serving even better than in the 1st set and for Izak there was really no chance to recover. Very good tournament for bot!
h anyway. Good luck to Becker for his comeback in the top100.
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