Rahber Thariani defeats Zoran Popovic
6-7 (3-7), 7-5, 1-0 (10-7)

Another bruising battle against Zoran "Mastermind" Popovic. I stormed out to a 3 - 0 lead and was feeling pretty good. Zoran immediately adjusted increasing the depth on his balls and throwing different spins on the ball and not trying to go head to head on the power. He drew level to 3-3 and we continued on serve till the tiebreaker. He played a really strong tiebreaker and took me out 7-3, I was completely outclassed and making all sorts of errors and Zoran was super solid.

2nd set Zoran got off to a great start and broke immediately to start the set. I knew this was going to be a dogfight as Zoran wasn't going to give me anything - I broke back and we stayed on serve till 5-5 when I pulled out a game then broke Zoran to get into the tiebreaker.

Tiebreaker Zoran had the lead for the first few points and a few long points and deep loopers keeping the ball deep and eventually I was able to finish it off with a serve and volley point.

Overall - solid tough match - Zoran and I have been practising a fair bit and I was surprised how tough he was playing with deep solid balls. Looking forward to the next match!