Albert Ramos-Vinolas scuttles past Santiago Giraldo in round one – Brasil Open 2012
Albert Ramos-Vinolas, the eighth seed contestant from Spain, succeeded against the 65th ranked Colombian competitor, Santiago Giraldo, in the opening round encounter of the Brasil Open. The match was played on hard courts
of Sao Paulo; lasting for an hour and 24 minutes before the Spaniard crushing his opponent in straight sets 6-3, 6-4.
Both these players are ranked next to each other with Vinolas holding firm on his career-high 64th ranking. He needs to stay amongst the Top-64 players to make a direct entry in the London Olympics, later this year.
Vinolas had lost the two head-to-head matches played before this encounter against Giraldo but never looked under any sort of psychological pressure. He went out there with one motive in his mind; to win the contest and move into
the next round.
The Spaniard registered an early breakpoint to take the lead and consolidated it with a successful hold. Giraldo bounced back into the match with a successful breakthrough in the fourth game to diminish the initial lead of his
opponent. Scores were tied at 2-2 with the eighth seed Spaniard to serve the following game.
Giraldo was looking good; attacking his opponent’s serves consistently but couldn’t register another breakthrough. Surprisingly, Giraldo broke the shackles and foxed his opponent in the sixth game; registering a critical breakpoint.
Scores progressed to 4-2 in favour of the Spaniard.
The Colombian tennis ace came close on registering breakthrough on two successive occasions but Vinolas strained past the pivotal stage of the set and triumphed in the first half of the match. Giraldo cracked down in the opening
game of the second set and went down 2-0 in no time. Only special players can deal with the pressure situations and Giraldo was not in the right frame of mind to tackle the stress. He lost another serve game and went down 5-1 with nothing going in his favour.
A little cameo from the Colombian earned him one break back in the eighth game that listed respectable scores to 5-4 with his opponent serving for the match. Vinolas didn’t fault for the second time on his serve and spared just
one point in the final game; winning the match in an emphatic fashion.
Albert Ramos-Vinolas squares-off against the qualifier from Russia, Igor Andreev, in the second round clash of the tournament. Andreev defeated the wildcard entrant, Fernando Gonzalez, in round one.
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