Dmitry Tursunov plays local wildcard Mirza Basic in the last eight of the Sarajevo challenger.
Tursunov has not looked that comfortable all week on the quick surface in Sarajevo, struggling to find his fluency from the back of the court. After competing on the ATP Tour last month, scoring wins over the likes of Ivan Ljubicic, the Russian is probably finding it difficult to raise his game for the low key surroundings of the challenger circuit.
He was lucky to get through his first round clash against Igor Sijsling, the Dutchman handing him a lucky break by retiring early in the deciding set and he was outplayed early on by Andrej Martin yesterday before hitting back to see off the Slovak 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
On paper Basic should pose few problems for Tursunov. After all the 19 year old wildcard is ranked 449 but he is one to watch for the future after reaching six in the world in the juniors and he has been inspired by the home crowd so far this week.
The tennis fans in Sarajevo have been getting behind their home players, even going as far to cheer the double faults of their opponents and Basic has taken down big serving Roko Karanusic (a former top 100 player) and eighth seed Grega Zemlja so far.
Prediction: Tursunov in three
