George Loffhagen believes aggressive tennis helped seal a hard-fought victory against Chinese qualifier Juncheng Shang at the LTA’s Rothesay Open Nottingham.
Mortlake’s Loffhagen had already secured the biggest win of his career in round one on Tuesday, beating Otto Virtanen in straight sets to progress to the second round in Nottingham.
However the 22-year-old was then handed a tough test in the form of teenager Shang, the world No.176 who has qualified for both the Australian and French Open this season.
The Brit impressively claimed the opening set, but after being forced into a decider by Shang the world No.414 was thrilled that he could reassert his aggressive game style and seal a 6-4 5-7 6-3 victory.
He said: “I’m really happy to get another win today.
“I thought I had a good first set again – I had a few chances actually but didn’t take them, but managed to get a break at the end of the set to win it.
“I played well in the second set and had a few chances, but I played a poor game at 5-5 to get broken. He came up with a couple of good shots though, and then closed it out.
“Then I just tried to regroup for the third set and thought I played a bit more aggressive during the middle of the set which helped, and managed to close it out.”
Loffhagen will play fifth seed Dominik Koepfer in Friday’s quarter-final, with the German having beaten Briton Arthur Fery in the second round on Wednesday.
And he will certainly be hoping to draw on home support once again, with a significant crowd in for his match on Tuesday night.
“I definitely felt the support,” he added.
“I felt like there were a few more people out there today as well on Court 1 with the stands which really helped, it pushed me over the line a bit.”
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