2011 Brisbane International: Thursday Review for Men’s Singles Draw
Finishing play for the fifth day, the 2011 Brisbane International saw two quarterfinal matches along with the remaining second-round clashes being wrapped up on Thursday.
Kicking off play for the day was the only unseeded battle as Santiago Giraldo from Colombia met Kevin Anderson from South Africa. In a match that lasted almost two hours, Anderson bounced back from being 2-6 down in the opener
to win 6-3 in the second set and then finally wrapping it up 6-4 in the decider. Anderson served 12 aces and won 51 out of 82 service points to defeat Giraldo and secure a spot for himself in the semis.
Anderson moves on in the event to play defending champion Andy Roddick. Roddick secured a spot for himself in the semis after defeating his quarterfinal opponent fifth seed Marcos Baghdatis. Enjoying a no-set-loss record in the
event so far, Roddick defeated wildcard entrant Marinko Matosevic in his opening clash and then Alexandr Dolgopolov in the second round to setup a quarterfinal clash with Baghdatis.
Roddick wrapped up a straight set victory in 74 minutes, serving seven aces and won 34 out of 48 service points. Leading throughout the match, Roddick enjoyed a 6-2 victory in the opener before clinching a win with a 6-3 in the
second set.
“I felt good about pretty much everything tonight,” Roddick said later. “The conditions were a little heavier, which made it tougher to create and that’s probably why you saw a lot of break point opportunities; the serves weren’t
jumping through. On the flip side my slice was staying down, and it was tough to create off of that. That won me a lot of baseline rallies tonight.”
The opening quarterfinal clashes were followed by the remaining two second-round clashes, with two players securing their berths in the quarterfinals.
In a surprising turn of events, local qualifier Matthew Ebden upset eighth seed Denis Istomin to secure a spot for himself in the quarterfinals. Serving five aces and scoring 39 service points out of 62, Ebden secured a twin set
score win of 6-4, 6-4 over the eighth seed in 73 minutes.
Ebden goes on to meet top seed Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals. Soderling moved into the next round after enjoying a straight, yet not so simple, set win over Michael Berrer. Opening serve in the first set, Soderling rushed
into the lead to clinch a 6-3 victory. However, Berrer put up fight in the second set going head-to-head with the Swede, taking the set into a tiebreaker. Keeping the score tied for fourteen points, Soderling caught a break only on the fifteenth point to clinch
the tiebreaker 9-7.
“It was tough today,” said Soderling. “Two sets, but they were both really close and I had to save some break points in the first set. The second one was really close and I was lucky to win this match in two sets. I had to fight
a lot to win this one. Tie-breaks are always a little different. You have to stay very focused. He came up with some good stuff in the tie-break but I still managed to win it.”
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