Philipp Oswald from Austria and New Zealand's Marcus Daniel during his doubles quarter finals match against Frederik Nielsen from Denmark and Tim Puetz from Germany at the 2020 ASB Classic Mens. ASB T
There will be a local presence in the last four of the doubles on Friday at the ASB Classic, after Kiwi Marcus Daniell and his Austrian partner took out a hard fought quarter final on Thursday afternoon.
In front of a raucous crowd on an outside court, Daniell and Oswald
came back from a set down to prevail 4-6 6-1 10-7.
"From the first game those guys brought the pressure, got us at sudden death deuce in the first game," said Daniell, who also felt they were "unlucky" with a line call on their only break point in the first set.
"In the second set I felt like we really stepped up, went to another gear on return games and sort of ran away with it. The super [tiebreak] is just anyone's game and with the home crowd and the energy that they bring, we were just able to out passion them a little bit."
Daniell, who took the Auckland title in 2010 alongside Horia Tecau, is the last remaining Kiwi in the draw – after Artem Sitak and Divij Sharan (India) were edged 7-5 6-7 (3) 10-8 by the Belgian combination of Sander GIlle and Joran Vliegen, and sees it as a privilege.
