The march of South Africa’s ”Cinderella Men” continued unabated during a rain-marred third day of the South African Open at Montecasino on Wednesday evening when Izak van der Merwe upstaged Germany’s Benjamin Becker to complete a hat-trick of wildcards who have made progress in the tournament.
Big-serving, 6ft 5in tall Van der Merwe’s 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-3) success in 95 minutes, which instantly earned him R70 000, enabled him to join Rik De Voest and Raven Klaasen as players to enter the second round in spite of effectively entering the event through the back door.
The 286th-ranked Van der Merwe was well out of the qualifying cut-off for automatic entries, but his crunching serving and general composure proved too much for the 123rd-rated player who remains best remembered for knocking the final nails into the coffin of Andre Agassi’s illustrious career in his last US Open appearance.
But Van der Merwe’s success was long in the waiting, with torrential rain in the Johannesburg area through most of the day delaying the start of the proceedings by five hours from the scheduled 1pm start.
And making Van der Merwe’s success more meritorious was the fact that he had initially been overlooked for a wildcard place as well in spite of his record warranting a position.
He demonstrated dogged determination and composure in equal quantities by taking an early service break in both sets, allowing the advantage to slip, but still keeping his nerve to forge ahead again.
However, it was Van de Merwe’s serving, which produced 10 aces and regularly exceeded the 200km/h mark, that frustrated Becker and was the decisive factor.
The grimacing, frowning German had been a late acceptance into the event after the withdrawal of French magician Fabrice Santoro, and he only arrived in South Africa late on Monday — suggesting he might well have wondered afterwards whether his helter-skelter trip had been worthwhile. — Sapa