Victorious Berdych joins elite Club 500

Czech thunderbird Tomas Berdych came up with a titanic performance in a milestone match, using his full range -power, pace and persistence -to put out Italy’s Simone Bolleli to move into the quarterfinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, an ATP 500 Series tournament. Berdych came through 7-6 (9-7), 5-7, 6-0 to clinch his 500th career win. The 6 ft 5′ pro became only the eighth active player to gain entry into an elite league of players which includes Roger Federer (1003 wins), Rafael Nadal (713), David Ferrer (615), Novak Djokovic (614), Lleyton Hewitt (612), Tommy Haas (561), Tommy Robredo (502). “It feels great, it’s nice,“ a beaming Berdych said of his 500th career win adding, “I talked about it last night with my coach Dani (Vallverdu), we thought that I just need to keep my body fresh and you know make another 500.Let’s try to chase Roger. It’s a good sign. Just try to keep hitting more and more, try to play as long as I can and that’s it.“

Berdych struggled to break free in the first two sets against a player who he leads 3-2 in head-to head clashes, but one he hasn’t gone up against on the Tour in nearly six years. He closed out the opening set tie-break, but only just, on the second set point after 57 minutes of play with neither player dropping serve.

In the second set, games went with serve until the 12th game, when at 15-30 on the Czech powerhouse’s serve, he hit what appeared to be a line-ball winner, which was called out. Berdych challenged and won the point, but the umpire directed that the point be replayed. The No.4 seed argued the point to no avail.

The second set loss was a wake-up call of sorts for the Czech. He locked up the decider without dropping a game, closing out the contest in 2 hours and 24 minutes. “It was always going to be the decision of the chair umpire,“ Berdych said of the fourth point of the 12th game of the second set, “In the end, I have to respect that. But honestly , I needed it. I felt that I needed to get some steam out. I probably lost the second set because of that. I had a great third set.”