Second win to Berankis in Australian open qualifications ⋆ The Baltic Review

The first Lithuanian tennis player, Ričardas Berankis managed to qualify today (Friday, January 10th) to the final round of the Australian Open qualifications.

The 23-year old Lithuanian who is taking the 130th place in the world, played in the second round of the Australian Open qualifications. His opponent was the 31-year old Brazilian Andre Ghem who is taking the 226th place in the ATP rankings. Berankis was the better one and won in straight sets with 6-4, 6-3 only by 77 minutes. Despite the fact the the Brazilian tennis player was almost 20 cm higher than Berankis with 193 cm, he managed to shot only one ace during the match. Berankis, whose high is only 175 cm, shot five aces. By his victory, The Lithuanian is going to get 14400 Australian Dollars and 16 ATP ranking points.

The next opponent of the Lithuanian, who is ranked 14th in the qualifications, will be the 24-year old Slovakian Andrej Martin who is taking the 147th place in the world. If Berankis will pass the Slovakian, he will play in the main draw of the first Grand Slam of the year where the total prize money found is 33 million Australian dollars.

Last year, Berankis reached the third round in the tournament where he lost to the British Andy Murray who was the third best tennis player in the world. Berankis gave there great match but lost in three sets, 6-3,6-4,7-5.