Alessio Di Mauro clean sweeps Gerald Melzer in 1st round – Todi Challenger 2011
Monday, 12th September, moved on with the continuation of the 1st round match of the 2011 Internazionali di Tennis dell'Umbria, Todi Challenger, with Alessio Di Mauro rivalling against Gerald Melzer, Austrian,
to advance into the 2nd round of the ATP Challenger Tour.
Playing for just over 2 hours, the Italian mustered the clay court winning 7-6(7), 6-3 to walk off with a 2nd round ticket.
Having the advantage of playing at home for a significant time, the Italian eased away with the match with mere difficulty. Although Melzer had a better last 10 match run than the Italian, he still could not get the clay court
better than those who made it.
The pair started off with Mauro took the opening serve of the match. Taking the lead winning game 1, Mauro stood to play the 21-year-old who immediately levelled up the scores winning game 2. With score once again level at 2-2,
the two broke each other in 3 consecutive games with Melzer breaking the Italian twice and taking the lead 4-3.
With the Austrian leading 5-3, the 34-year-old cut the lead to 4-5 before he slammed a breakpoint win to level the scores at 5-5. Breaking each other for the 3rd time, the two rivals ended up in a tiebreak set. intensifying
as much as it could get, Melzer levelled the tiebreak scores at 7-7 before Mauro won the last point to take away the set 7-6(7) and take the match lead, 1-0.
The second set was more of a one-sided game. Melzer went down instantly as the Italian broke the 21-year-old in game 3 and 5 and stood to lead the set with a comfortable 4 games lead, 5-1. Fighting away still, Melzer did try to
turn the tables as he broke the Italian after he won game 7, however, the 34-year-old sealed the match winning game 9, set, 6-3, and the match, 7-6(7), 6-3 to move into the 2nd round.
Ranked world No.178, Mauro is an old times player starting off back in late 90’s. Making it into the top 100 in 2007, the 34-year-old was highest ranked world No.68 and has been purely a clay court player. Playing over 600 fixtures
in his career, the Italian had hardly 6 hard court matches to his records. The left hander, however, gave a super show-off winning the 1st round.
Tags: