Albert Montanes outfoxes Bobby Reynolds in the second round – Estoril Open 2012
Albert Montanes, the seventh seed Spaniard, defeated the 29-year-old American, Bobby Reynolds, in the second round of the Estoril Open on Thursday. He confirmed the place in the third round of the tournament after battling for
a fraction over two hours and registering the scores 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
The Spaniard bounced back a set down to oust his rival in their first ever meeting in the professional career. It was an eye-startling clash that featured all different types of strokes and thoroughly entertained the crowd who
turned up to witness such an encounter.
The match kicked off in sloppy fashion. Reynolds held his serve with ease and exerted immense pressure on the Spaniard who saved a couple of breakpoints before matching the scores with his counterpart. Both players capitalized
on their serve holds and didn’t face any difficult in the following seven games as the scores moved to 4-5 in favour of the American. The tense moment had arrived and the 31-year-old panicked; lost the first serve game that proved to be the major downturn
in the opening set.
However, he did well to start the second set with a breakthrough. It was the only breakpoint played throughout the set and Montanes kept his chances alive of going through to the next round. He was close on winning another breakpoint
in the fifth game but squandered a golden opportunity by hitting the ball straight at the throat of the net. However, he was smart enough to sustain his lead having saved a breakpoint in the eighth game.
A cautious start to the final set witnessed successive serve holds at both ends before the seventh seed Spaniard broke serve to take the lead. He consolidated his position with a devastating serve hold and continued to exert pressure
on Reynolds.
It was getting pretty difficult to stop the Spaniard from winning the games so easily on his serves. Reynolds needed to break serve to level the scores but instead he dropped a breakpoint in the ninth game that helped his counterpart
to march ahead.
It was a very good matchup considering the difference between the rankings of both players. Reynolds did very well to resist for a couple of hours but panicked at the end that cost him the match. Montanes is set to take on the
top seed, Juan Martin del Potro, who is also the defending champion of the tournament.
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