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Vancouver's Filip Peliwo goes down fighting against the experienced Sergiy Stakhkovsky at the Rogers Cup
MONTREAL – If nothing else, Filip Peliwo showed he was willing to hang in there and fight.
And in tennis, that's half the battle.
The 21-year-old from Vancouver was down and out against the experienced Sergiy Stakhovsky, an all-court player from Ukraine who tied him in knots in a 26-minute first set.
But then, at 1-6, 2-5, as Stakhovsky was serving for a routine first-round victory at the Rogers Cup, Peliwo finally earned his first break point. And then he broke. And then, he broke Stakhovsky again when he tried to serve it out a second time. And then, at 5-6, he broke him again to sneak out an unlikely second set.
Stakhovsky prevailed, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, but Peliwo can't be disappointed with his effort. In the end, experience won out, and the 21-year-old may have learned from a few rookie mistakes at crucial junctures.
There was the poor game he played at 2-2 in the third set that basically was the difference. There was the point on which he stopped play, making a Hawkeye Challenge (incorrect) more on hope than faith. There was the point where, out of nowhere, he checked out on the second hit of the rally with an ill-advised, and poorly-executed drop shot.
But he fought. When a player like Stakhovsky, loaded with talent and one of the rare serve-volleyers out there, has trouble staying in the top-50 in the world, you know he probably has issues with consistency. And so, if you at least give him some rope, he might help you out.
For a time, Stakhovsky did.
"You saw when I was rallying with him, hitting high, hitting heavy, moving him around, hitting high percentage, a lot of crosscourts without trying to change direction on one of the first balls, my game was more than enough to beat this guy. He did well to stay in there in the third set and take his opportunities when he had them. So credit to him for that," Peliwo said. "But I feel like the match was really decided on some of my unforced errors. At 2-all, I gave him four mistakes. All he had to do there was to hit it in. That's where I'm disappointed."
Peliwo said he realized (if he didn't already know this) that his game is enough to compete with better players. It all comes down to putting a little less pressure on himself to try to do too much, to think he needs to be better than he is to get to their level.
"It's when I have little doubts and second-guessing myself, that's when I start to overdo it and overthink it, that's where I start to give it away a little bit," he said. "As soon as I'm a bit more patient and calm and composed... I think I'm on the right track. Just have to keep it going. For the summer, if I do that, I think I'll be pretty quick to get back to where I need to be."
But that's the tricky part; if the difference in level between No. 500 in the world and No. 50 isn't as wide as the Atlantic Ocean, it's those moments, those crucial points, and how they are played that help widen the gap. That can't be news to Peliwo, but the only way to handle those moments better is to experience more of them.
As for Peliwo's fellow Vancouverite Philip Bester, half the victory was just being here. Barely inside the top 500 at the beginning of the season, pretty much down and out in his career after hip surgery, the 26-year-old's ranking is the best it's ever been right now, built up bit by bit, small tournament after small tournament.
But against Gilles Muller, a tall lefty from Luxembourg with a huge serve, there wasn't much he could do on Monday. Muller is just at a different level; Bester didn't play badly, but the score was 6-2, 6-3.
"He's got a big serve. He hit some good shots in big moments. Credit to him, he found a way to win today. It's not so much that I was too impressed by how he was playing. I thought I was there myself. He was just the better player today," Bester dais. " I just got to have a short memory, move on, continue to do what I've been doing 'cause things at least from my end have been going well also."
The two best Canadian hopes take the court Tuesday in Montreal, weather permitting (it's looking a little grim) for their first-round matches.
Vasek Pospisil will play Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei for the second time in just over two weeks; he squeaked out a three-set win against him in Atlanta, in Pospisil's first match since Wimbledon.
As for No. 8 seed Milos Raonic, he gets a night-session slot on the Stadium court (6:30 p.m.) against the 36-year-old monster server, Ivo Karlovic of Croatia.
As it happens – and you wonder if they coordinate or communicate at all – Raonic will be on court in Montreal at the same time as his female counterpart, Genie Bouchard, plays Belinda Bencic on the stadium court in Toronto.
