Andreas Haider-Maurer; Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo move into the second round – SkiStar Swedish Open 2011
In the first of two men’s singles first round matches of the 2011 SkiStar Swedish Open played on Wednesday Andreas Haider-Maurer emerged as the victor against his opponent Mikhail Kukushkin. While the second match ended with a surprising turn of events in Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo’s favor who banished the seventh seed Andy Golubev from the tournament. Both of them have now secured berths in the second round of the tournament.
Austrian Haider-Maurer secured a relatively simple victory with finesse and skill, overpowering his opponent with a two set lead. While the Kazakh Kukushkin showed some strength in the first set of the match, his defences gave way and his stronghold crumbled.
Haider-Maurer secured his position in the first set by bagging five superb aces and gave away only a single double fault. However both the players retained almost equal first serve accuracy but Haider-Maurer captured 12 first serve points – four more that Kukushkin. Both the players managed to save one breakpoint each but Haider-Maurer with his four breakpoints won led the race here. The first set ended 7-5 in Haider-Maurer’s favor. The second set ended at 6-2 with Haider-Maurer registering two crucial serve breaks to break Kukushkin’s back. The Austrian Haider-Maurer decisively won 2-0.
In the second match of the day, Spaniard Ramirez Hidalgo managed to win against seventh seeded Kazakh Andrey Golubev. The match continued for an excruciating two hours and ten minutes and remained closely contested throughout. The first and longest set leveled at 5-5 before Ramirez Hidalgo successfully converted a breakpoint and took the lead. Golubev eventually caught on and the game went into tie break, which was won by Golubev. The first set sealed at 7-6(4) to Gobulev’s advantage. Golubev ceded 7 double faults in this set.
Ramirez Hidalgo successfully recovered from the earlier debacle and with improvement especially visible in the service department, tied up the next two rounds at 6-1, 6-2 to win the match. Ramirez’s ability to win first serve points, 9 in the first and 10 in the second were the winning factors. Ramirez Hidalgo registered 5 set breaks in the last two sets and showed exceptional skill at saving 6.
The match ended 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-2 with Ramirez Hidalgo as the surprising but deserving winner.
Ramirez Hidalgo will now compete with Swede wild card Michael Ryderstedt while Haider-Maurer’s next match will be against Italian Filippo Volandri in the second round of the Swedish Open.
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