2011 French Open: Albert Montanes edges past Marc Gicquel on the first day
World number 37, Albert Montanes from Spain, ended the voyage of the lucky loser from France, Marc Gicquel, by defeating him in the first round of the French Open in Paris, France, on Sunday. The Spaniard sealed victory in straight sets 6-4, 6-4, 6-2, in one hour and forty five minutes to move on to the second round of the second Grand Slam event of the year.
Montanes was dominant in the game from the very first minute and exhibited his amazing tennis skills on the clay court of Paris. The both men met once before at New Haven in 2008, when Gicquel defeated the Spaniard in straight sets 7-5, 6-3. The Spaniard finally avenged his defeat this time round at Roland Garros and dispensed Gicquel out of the mega event in style.
It was a low serve game, with both contestants serving round about 50 per cent mark. Montanes fired 10 aces to the opponent’s court, while the French banged just one ace in the entire matchup. A total of 167 points were played in the game, with Montanes securing 94 and Gicquel collecting the rest of 73 points to remain on the losing end.
Gicquel clearly lacked precision in the game, as he spilled out 39 unforced errors, including three double faults. His shot execution was quite ordinary and his stroked missed their marks most of the time, ending long and wide of the court. The French hung in the opening two sets for a while but posed no real resistance in the third set, submitting the match to his superior opponent in the end.
The aggressive Spaniard registered eight winners in the opener, while Gicquel scored 10 of those in reply. The only serve break of the opening set can from Montanes’ side, sealing the set to his name at 6-4.
No real difference was seen in Gicquel’s game in the following set, as he kept on frittering away simple opportunities to remain at disadvantage. He suffered a serve break in the fifth game and couldn’t recover from it till the conclusion of the second set, as Montanes got 2-0 in the contest.
The French continued with his dreadful run in the third set as well, with Montanes stinging three break points to wrap up victory at 6-2. The Spaniard will now face his fellow compatriot Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo in an all-Spanish clash in the second round of the French Open. Hidalgo upset the 19th seed Marin Cilic of Croatia in straight sets 7-6(5), 6-4, 6-4, in the opening round to meet Montanes.
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