Albert Montanes stuns Mikhail Youzhny to advance into the fourth round – French Open 2011
Spaniard Albert Montanes earned an unexpected victory after upsetting a former top ten player, Russian Mikhail Youzhny in straight sets. The twelfth seeded Russian barely survived the first and the last set to exit from the third
round of the 2011 Roland Garros, a major clay court event held in Paris, France, on Friday.
Montanes, ranked 38th in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, earned double breadsticks to wipe out the Russian, ranked 25 places above him, in two hours and eighteen minutes on court two of Stade Roland
Garros. The Spaniard won for the first time in their third meeting and by doing so, he lowered the trail in their head-to-head series by 1-2.
30-year-old Spaniard took just thirty-two minutes to bag the first breadstick. He showed nerves of steel to hit 200 kmph serves in the opening set. He lost one game but converted both breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to
seal the set with an assuring 6-1 score line by a backhand winner down the line.
The higher ranked Russian carried his disappointing ways into the second set and was trailing 0-4 when he called for treatment on his right shoulder. The treatment seemed to work and the 28-year-old roared back in the game to level
the scores at 4-4. He dragged the set to tie-breaker but did nothing in it to lose without winning a single point.
Both players produced almost equal first serve share and earned around 60 percent on it. They also broke each other serves twice but Montanes produced twelve unforced errors as compared to Youzhny’s nineteen and was all over court
in the tie-breaker to eventually secure a 7-0 victory.
Montanes found his winning ways again in the final set and pinged the balls expertly onto the lines to pocket another breadstick. Regardless of producing a lower first serve share of 55 percent as opposed to Russian’s 71 percent
and clobbering more unforced errors, he earned a spectacular 92 percent win on it. The Spaniard convincingly held his entire serves and converted both breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to clinch easily.
The unseeded Spaniard has had a poor season so far and was standing on a three match losing streak when he entered this Grand Slam event. He re-focused his strategy in this event and triumphed over lucky loser, Marc Gicquel in
straight sets at his home soil. He then downed his countryman Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo in four sets to reach this spot.
Up next for the Spaniard is the Italian Fabio Fognini who also reached this spot after upsetting a seeded player. Fognini bounced from a set down to win in a four set thriller against the thirtieth seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez
on another court.
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