Andre Ghem upsets Andrey Kuznetsov in the first round – Sao Leopoldo Challenger 2011
Russian, Andrey Kuznetsov, squared-off against the Brazilian, Andre Ghem, in the first round of the Sao Leopoldo Challenger tournament, played in Brazil, on Monday October 31st. The first meeting between the two contenders
lasted for an hour and twenty-three minutes and finished with a final score of 7-6(9), 6-0 in favour of the local boy.
Both players had lost four matches from their last five encounters and were on equal terms as far as their recent form was considered but Russian had a trivial advantage of superior ranking whilst his opponent had advantage of
home crowd.
Apparently Russian couldn’t cope with the alien environment and suffered a thumping loss at the hands of the Brazilian. It was one of those days that Russian would like to forget; luck was totally against him.
First set was really exciting as both players held on to their serves throughout and didn’t allow their opponent to break once. Brazilian had an opportunity on two different occasions to break his opponent’s serve and take the
lead but he couldn’t capitalize on any of them.
Hence, the tie-breaker was enforced to decide the set. Both players were extremely cautious throughout the tie-breaker; it seemed like this will go on forever but then two timely struck aces from the Brazilian delighted the crowd
and won him the first set.
Trailing one set down and suffering from dehydration that caused fatigue, it was becoming extremely difficult for the Russian to cope with the situation; it would have been a miracle if he had pulled anything out of second set
because he was completely exhausted after the first set and the look on his face said the whole story.
The first set was decided with a difference of just 3 points; Ghem bagged 41 points whilst his competitor clinched 38. The upset was inevitable seeing the deteriorating condition of the Russian.
However, the second set was completely straight forward for the Brazilian as his opponent couldn’t secure anything at all. The set was over in just six games and all of them were won by the local boy. It was disappointing to see
an experienced and better player being pulled out of the tournament in such demoralizing manner.
Brazilian broke his opponent’s serve thrice and smashed an ace; tiring legs of Russian forced three double-faults in the second set which is completely uncharacteristic of him. A comprehensive victory for the local boy helped him
march into the second round of the tournament.
Total points played in the match were 121; local boy bagged 69 of them whilst his opponent secured 52. Kuznetsov won 38 of those 52 points in the first set and this shows the great turnaround in his performance due to fatigue and
dehydration.
Andre Ghem, wildcard entrant, squares-off against the seventh seed Argentine, Maximo Gonzalez, in the second round.
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