Juan Martin del Potro is on his way to making a good run at the SAP Open title. It's still early to annoint anybody anything, but the commentator expressed the feelings of many at the end of the match when he went on about how a semifinal between del Potro and the number one seed Fernando Verdasco would be explosive and just all-around good tennis.
Del Potro took the first set without much incident, using superior ability to make all the shots, he took it at 6-1. His opponent, Lukas Lacko didn't have much to offer the 2009 US Open Champion, and didn't help himself with small mistakes throughout the set. His backhand was off all night and far too many balls hit the net, which just can't happen with this level of competition. When he did blister off some beautiful shots though, del Potro showed that he was recovering from his injuries just fine an that he is most definitely in a whole different league.
The second set was much closer though, Lacko fought hard for every point and made del Potro work it and eventually took it to a tiebreak. After winning five of the first six points though, del Potro seemed to have it in the bag. He did - getting to 6-1, and getting the winner off a missed backhand from Lacko to finish the match at an official score of 6-1, 7-6.
In the post-match interview, del Potro discussed how hard it was not only physically, but mentally in regards to recovering from his injuries that took him out of much of 2010. While it's fun to fascinate about a Verdasco-del Potro semifinal, he still has a tough test in his next opponent, Lleyton Hewitt.
Coming up later tonight are both top seeds at the SAP Open in action. Fernando Verdasco takes on Ivo Karlovic, the hard-serving Croatian while the world number twelve and second seeded Gael Monfils takes on Robert Kendrick shortly after. Follow @sbnbayarea on Twitter for tweets during the matchups.