Agustin Velotti crawls past Nicolas Barrientos into the main draw – Medellin Challenger 2011
Third seeded Argentine, Agustin Velotti went head-to-head against Nicolas Barrientos of Colombia in the last qualifying round of Medellin Challenger tournament, contested in Colombia, on Sunday October 30th. Match lasted
for two hours and twenty-three minutes and finished with the triumph for the Argentine with a score of 3-6, 6-4, 7-5.
Local boy had won just four of his last ten encounters whilst his opponent had lost just three. Superior ranking and terrific form of the Argentine teenager hinted towards its victory. The only factor that was in favour of the
Colombian was his local crowd that gathered in numbers to support him and familiar court and weather conditions.
The third seed started the proceedings slowly. Both players held their serves for the first five games before the home boy broke his opponent’s serve and thrashed him with three games lead and pushed the score to 5-2.
Argentine couldn’t break to level the things and lost the first set with a massive difference of nine points; he had two opportunities to earn breakpoint but he couldn’t capitalize on any of them; hence, trailed one set down.
Velotti bounced back into the match with an exciting comeback in the second set. He clinched initial lead of 4-0 by breaking his opponent’s serve twice. Barrientos bounced back to level things up at 4-4 with two consecutive breakpoints
but his comeback was halted at that point because his serve was broke again for the third time that helped his opponent to take the lead. Velotti held his serve in the last game to enforce the third set to decide the match.
Spectators were enthralled with such an impressive performance by both players but wanted their home boy to perform much better in the third set to bring glory to them. It was a difficult task considering the situation and several
factors running against him but crowd’s support was boosting his morale at the same time.
It was a very intriguing start to the third set as both players exchanged breaks in the first four games; pressure was visible but both were not allowing their opponent to take lead. For the next five games both players showed
some delightful power play and variety of shots to hold on to their serves and pushed the score to 5-4 in favour of local boy.
It was the crucial time of the set and a major blunder in the form of double-fault in the ninth game provided an opportunity to his opponent to break who grabbed it with both hands and took the lead that continued till the end.
Barrientos couldn’t break again to bring the scores on level and lost the set.
Velotti placed himself in the first round draws where he plays Guillermo Rivera-Aranguiz of Chile.
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