Adrian Menendez-Maceiras upsets seeded Stephane Robert in second round – Orleans Challenger 2011
Adrian Menendez-Maceiras of Spain went head-to-head against the French, Stephane Robert, in the second round of the Orleans Challenger Tournament, contested in France, on Thursday October 20th. It was the first meeting
between the two players and ended up in another upset of the tournament; World No.256, Menendez-Maceiras, bamboozled the sixth seeded World No. 106, Robert, in straight sets. The match lasted for an hour and thirty-one minutes and ended up with a final score
of 6-4, 7-5.
31-year-old French veteran was already going through some rough time and had won just four games from his last nine encounters while on the other hand his opponent was enjoying a good run of form having won six of his last nine.
On paper, Robert was a clear-cut favourite but at pitch it was Menendez-Maceiras who made his mark and pulled up another major upset of the tournament.
Crowd had gathered to support their veteran national hero but they were really disappointed by his game play and left for houses with utmost anguish and disbelief. Spanish stood firm and was not at all distracted from the initial
roaring from the crowd.
Nine aces were struck in the first set; five by the Spanish and four from the home boy. Both players went neck to neck till the eighth game when the score was levelled at four games apiece. It was the Spanish boy who pushed up
the tempo and stunned the crowd by breaking for the second time in the set and then capitalized it by winning the last game of the set on his serve.
The difference of just two points decided the set between the two players. Spanish earned 42 points from the set and hinted another major upset with his first set triumph. The sixth seeded veteran had to come up with a new plan
to tackle the late onslaught of his opponent but apparently he ran out of ideas was just outplayed by the youngster.
The mental setback of the first set for the veteran proved a little too much to handle and he couldn’t concentrate in the second set. The anger did brought seven aces for the veteran but the shot selection was very poor and frustration
was the main reason for that uncharacteristic display.
25-year-old, Menendez-Maceiras, registered an impressive 86% first serve success rate and followed it up with 83% second serve success rate in the second set that was good enough to knock-out the sixth seed. He struck three aces
on his way and won the set with an impressive lead of nine points in the second set.
Adrian Menendez-Maceiras will now have a quarter-final battle with Arnaud Clement that pulled up two consecutive upsets in the last two rounds of the tournament.
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