19-year-old Laurynas Grigelis stands tall as the 6ft 6in Carsten Ball kneels – Farmers Classic 2011
As the LA Tennis Centre jammed up with fans, Carsten Ball, the Australian, played Lithuanian Laurynas Grigelis, the world No.243. The Farmers Classic Cup main draw was yet to be filled up as the qualifying round wraps up on Monday. Playing each other for the first time in history, the two had an equal advantage over the blue hard court of Los Angeles. However, there is only one person who gets through smiling.
The left handed Carsten has been playing professional tennis since 2005. The gigantic humanly tennis player stands at 6’6”. Scaring the h**l out of his opponents with his presence on the circuit, the Aussi is still a low ranked professional, at world No. 305.
On the contrary, the world No.243 is just at his teenage, 19, the young Lithuanian has been performing on his best. 7 out the last 10 matches the Lithuanian played were at his success and mostly on hard court.
The matches between the two started off with Ball serving first. Although the huge Aussie had a physical advantage of getting to the ball easily with his long stick like hands but the Lithuanian youngster was too much to handle. The first set went off with a breakpoint to the young 19-year-old. Laurynas won the next game 2-0 on his respective serve with a breakpoint saved. The Aussie pulled his way backup as he took away the next two games with ease to level the scores to 2-2 and further on at 3-3.
The turning point was when Ball served for game 7 and eventually gave a cheap breakpoint to lack behind the Lithuanian 3-4. The youngster took the advantage and slammed another game only to be left with one more 5-3. Ball stood up to close the gap but could not win game10 and finally lost the set 4-6.
Once again the Aussi served first hoping to get it right this time. The scores levelled at 1-1 after the second game of set 2. Ball served game and lost the 3rd breakpoint of the match and went down 1-2.
The match started to bend toward the 19-year-old as he seemed quite a headache. Laurynas went up 4-2 by game 16 of the match. The Aussi did fight back hard as he levelled the scores at 4-4, however, this was the last he could level. The young sensation flawlessly blistered the next two games taking the set 6-4 and the match 6-4, 6-4 making the giant fall hard on his knees.
Laurynas now sits on a hot seat to the draws where he would face Clement Reix, the Frenchman for a spot in the main draw.
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