Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq rallied to overhaul top seed Tomas Berdych 0-6, 7-5, 6-1 on Sunday and win his second career title at the Portugal Open, leaving the world No. 6 ruing the time violation rule and joking that he will soon need a motorcycle if he is to keep his matches on schedule.
Berdych received a time warning from the umpire in the second set of the final after exceeding the 25 seconds allowed between points.
“When we have this crazy rule you are always worried about what the umpire might do. It’s been around a few years and I’m still getting used to it,” the Czech player said. “All of a sudden the guy calls a time warning. I’m gonna need a motorcycle to get around between points if it continues like this. He gave the warning on a break point, the most important one of the second set.”
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Berlocq’s victory against Berdycg in 2 hours, 9 minutes made the world No. 62 Berlocq the sixth tournament winner over the age of 30 this year on the ATP Tour this year
Berdych was the South American’s second top-10 victim last week, after he beat ninth-ranked Milos Raonic of Canada in the quarter-finals.
“This is truly a dream for me,” said Berlocq, who found his form just in time after losing the opening set in 28 minutes.
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The Argentine baseliner, whose on-court grunting has irritated a string of rivals in recent years, regained his poise and slowly began to make inroads against the top seed playing on a wild card.
After being momentarily derailed by the second-set time violation called by umpire Fergus Murphy, Berdych regained his composure after several games of complaining about the call, only to find be broken in the final game of the second set.
He never recovered and in the third set dropped to 0-5 before getting a break-back.
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A double-fault a game later set up a match point, which Berdych saved before going down to the loss when his sliding volley hit the net on a second Berlocq match point.
“This was a tough loss, but Carlos played really well, he opened it up after the first set,” the Czech said. “It was still a good week for me, I’m glad I could come and play as a wildcard.”
Berdych suffered only his sixth loss of the season while Berlocq improved his season record to 9-7.
“To win this title today, I had to beat one of the best in the world. It was an honor to play and to win this final,” Berlocq said.
“It was really tough for me at the start, he was playing very aggressive, but I managed to slowly lift my game and get into the match. For me, the second set was like starting everything all over again. I managed to improve throughout the second and third sets and somehow I got the win,” he added.
Berlocq became the fifth Argentine to win in Oeiras after Juan Martin del Potro (2011, 2012), David Nalbandian (2002, 2006) Gaston Gaudio (2005) and Juan Chela (2004).
Berdych came to the Estadio de Honra with a 3-0 record in his series against the Argentine and had beaten Berlocq on clay in Dusseldorf and in the Davis Cup. The Czech was bidding for the ninth title of his career, while Berlocq added to his other trophy from Bastad in Sweden last summer.
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