2010 St. Petersburg Open: Tuesday's Review
Twelve matches altogether were played on Tuesday, 26th October, as the professionals took to the courts in the 2010 St. Petersburg Open. Eight singles and four doubles matches were scheduled for the day with a lot of
important results on the scoreboard.
Qualifying round finalists Konstantin Kravchuk from Russia and the Czech Frantisek Cermak started off the day as they battled it out in the centre court for their first round match. Kravchuk secured an easy win over Cermak as he
dominated the court and won the match with a 6-2, 6-3 score. Kravchuk will now face Illya Marchenko from Ukraine in their second round match later in the tournament. Marchenko moved into the second round after having defeated the Uzbek Denis Istomin later
in the day. Marchenko got an automatic win after Istomin retired due to an injury when the second set score was level at 2-2.
Another qualifying round finalist, Rajeev Ram from America, also took to the courts when he met the Spanish Pablo Andujar in their first round match. Ram won the first set 6-3 only to lose the second in a tie break. He however
made a comeback in the third set winning it again 6-3 to move on ahead into the second round.
Wild card entry Russian Andrey Kuznetsov played against the fourth qualifier and compatriot Evgeny Donskoy; both professionals enjoyed the home court advantage, though it might have tipped more in Donskoy’s favour as he got a straight
set win over Kuznetsov to move into the second round. The final match score was 7-5, 7-6(2).
Romanian Victor Hanescu also enjoyed an easy win over the Argentinean Horacio Zeballos as he defeated him with a match score of 6-2, 6-0. Following his first round win, Hanescu will play Ram in his second round match later in the
tournament. Luck dealt Zeballos’s countryman Maximo Gonzalez the same hand, as he too lost his first round match to French Paul-Henri Mathieu by 3-6, 4-6. Being the only Argentineans in the tournament, it is now safe to say that Argentina has lost her claim
to the title this year.
Third seed Janko Tipsarevic from Serbia played his first round match against the Russian Igor Kunitsyn. Tipsarevic defeated Kunitsyn with a straight set win of 6-4, 6-2. He now moves onto face the American Michael Russell in their
second round match.
Indo Pak express, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna also played their first doubles match today at St. Petersburg. The Indo Pak express faced the team of Russian Mikhail Youzhny and Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky. Seeded second
in the tournament, Aisam and Rohan won the match 6-2, 2-6, 10-3 and moved on into the quarterfinals.
The pair of Czech Frantisek Cermak and Slovak Michal Mertinak was seeded first in the tournament. However, their loss to the team of Taiwanese Lu Yen-Hsun and German Rainer Schuttler earlier today put them out of the running for
the title; Cermak and Mertinak lost to the unseeded team 6-7, 3-6.
Wild card entrants into the doubles; the Russian team of Michail Elgin and Teymuraz Gabashvili are off to a good start as they won their first round match against the team of Hanescu and American James Cerretani earlier today.
The Russian team will now play Schuttler and Lu in their quarterfinal match later in the tournament.
Last doubles match of the day was played between the American team of Scott Lipsky and Ram, and the team of Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin and Ukrainian Illya Marchenko. In the end, Kukushkin and Marchenko defeated the American team
by 6-1, 6-2 to move into the quarterfinals.
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