Rahber Thariani defeats Jovan Popovic
7-6 (7-4), 5-7, 1-0 (10-7)

Epic Quarterfinal Match--(From Tom) I arrived at 3-1 Rahber in the 1st set.  Up a break, this was high quality tennis all around.  Rahber controlled more of the points by stepping in to the court and hitting some of his patented semi-flat shots which he hits on the rise.  He followed some of these in for a few nice swinging volleys, overheads, and nice touch shots.  Frankly, his offense was pretty unstoppable, and I don't remember many errors at all.  However, Jovan countered with his counterpunching and big topsin forehand, and usual hustle,  and thus they kept holding till Rahber was serving at 5-4.  His aggressive serve let him down with a few doubles and thus 3 straight breaks had them at 6-6 and a first set tiebreak.  I got the sense that in the tiebreak that Rahber was still controlling the point more often with a bit more aggressiveness, and he won it 7-4. Second set started similar, but Jovan showed why he is playing in the 4.5 National Tournament.  His ability to scramble has always been there but now his slice backhand and big forehand were moving  Rahber off his "pitcher's mound" on the baseline.  This gave him a slight opening.   His big forehand produced  a few winners but more importantly it forced errors and kept Rahber's offense at bay, and R off the net.   Jovan snuck some timely net play of his own in also, threw in some loopy off pace shots, and his stellar play brought Rabher's play down a bit with a few more errors (but not much)  Rahber still battled back with some cannon serves, a good sportsmanship moment in which he called a shot against himself, and some scrambling of his own.  However, Jovan ended set with some long points, Jovan 7-5. I was sensing that Jovan had the momentum for the super tiebreak.  Combine that with the balls slowing down,  slight breeze, and both players looking a bit tired (first 2 sets were over 2 hours and 15 minutes), I thought the tiebreak avored Jovan's style.  Both players started conservative but still hitfing deep.  Halfway through a close super, Rahber played 2 smartly aggressive points to go up 6-4 then got a 3rd when his nicely placed ball took a weird bounce (or Jovan got wrong footed? or both?) and at 7-4 was in command.  At 9-4, Rahber looked to have it wrapped up, but Jovan won the next 3 points with courageous hitting under pressure.  Fittingly, Rahber painted a few lines on both sides of court for the final point, with Jovan continuing great defense until Rahber hit not one, but two solid volleys, until Jovan, finally couldn't run down the final shot (although he did get it close to going back in 🙂 I told these two that was high level tennis, and I wasn't kidding.  Rahber's aggression and relaxed movement around the court where he would look like he was late to a ball but then hit perfect shots repeatedly with varying speeds and placement, including swinging volleys, slices, and that aforementioned big serve makes him a formidable defending champion.  Contrast that with Jovan's big spins, tenacity, smarts, and hitting shots deep or sliced low with his mixed in offense, there were frankly, very few free points or short balls on either side.  2 hours and 45 minutes of high quality tennis, with only a few points difference in the 10 pointer.    Great match guys!