2010 St. Petersburg Open: Monday’s Review
With qualifying matches scheduled for the last two days, St. Petersburg saw the first few matches of its main draw on Monday while, four qualifying finals matches were also scheduled for the day.
The first player to gain acceptance into the main draw was the Russian Konstantin Kravchuk when he defeated Deniss Pavlovs from Latvia. Kravchuk earned a straight set win over Pavlovs with the final score 6-0, 6-3. Kravchuk earlier
defeated compatriot Artem Pudovkin and Belarusian Andrei Vasilevski to reach the qualifying final match. Kravchuk will face Czech Frantisek Cermak in the first round match later in the tournament. Cermak also moved into the main draw after winning his qualifying
final match against qualifying 3rd seed Ivan Sergeyev from Ukraine.
Joining the pair in the main draw from the qualifying round is American Rajeev Ram, who is seeded second in the qualifying round. Rajeev defeated Romanian Petru-Alexandru Luncanu to move into the main draw. Rajeev moved into the
qualifying finals after defeating Kazakh Alexey Kedryuk and Slovak Filip Polasek earlier in the qualifying round.
The last qualifier into the main draw is the 4th seed in the qualifying round, Evgeny Donskoy from Russia. Donskoy moved into the main draw after having defeated his compatriot Mikhail Ledovskikh. Though he lost the
first set 3-6, he bounced back in the second set and eventually won the match with a final score of 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
The main draw matches scheduled for the day were three singles and one doubles match.
Seventh seed, French Jeremy Chardy met Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin in a seeded battle. Even though Kukushkin lost the first set to Chardy 6-7; he bounced back soon enough and won the second set 6-1. In the final set of the game the
Kazakh won without losing any games to the French. The final score of the match was 6-7, 6-1, 6-0.
Italian Filippo Volandri and Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili battled it out in their first round match to see who would still be in the running for the title. As luck would have it, the Russian defeated Volandri and managed to stay
in the run for the title; an honour he could win for the Motherland. Gabashvili lost the first set to Volandri 3-6, though he soon reversed the score and won the second set 6-3. He went on to win the final set 6-2 and to win the match.
Wild card entry Igor Andreev from Russia met American Michael Russell on the court for the third and final singles match of the first round for the day. The American obtained a straight set win over Andreev as he humiliated him
with a set score of 6-1, 7-5.
The only doubles matchup of the day was played between the Brits Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski and the Slovakian team of Filip Polasek and Igor Zelenay. Seeded third in the doubles event, The Slovaks played excellently and got
an easy win over the Brits to move on ahead into the tournament. The match lasted a little over an hour with a final match score of 6-4, 6-2.
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