Kratochvil through to second round of Majorca Open Tennis tournament

The Swiss tennis player, Michel Kratochvil, has booked his place in the second round of the Majorca Open tournament after beating Spain's Alex Calatrava.

Kratochvil beat the Spaniard 6-4, 6-7, 6-2. After the match the Swiss player said he had learned a valuable lesson.

“When you’re up against a player who performs best on clay, you have to fight for every ball. If you don’t, you are always on the back foot during the game.”

Kratochvil will now go on to face Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer in the second round of the $500,000 (SFr 863,000) dollar tournament.

Elsewhere, it was a rather gloomy day for Swiss men’s tennis, with Marc Rosset’s bad run continuing.

The towering Swiss player was knocked out of the ATP tournament in Munich by Germany’s Tomas Behrend.

Behrend pleased the home crowd by sending Rosset packing in the first round. The German won the match in straight sets 7-6, 6-2.

Rosset has yet to win a match this year.

There was good news on the women’s front though, with Patty Schnyder beating the Austrian player, Barbara Schett, in straight sets at the WTA tennis tournament also in Germany.

swissinfo with agencies