Andy Murray takes down Daniel Gimeno-Traver in the opening round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
World number four, Andy Murray of Great Britain, recovered from a sloppy start in the opener to defeat Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain in the first round of Wimbledon Championships on Monday.
The Scot was one set down early in the game but made a tremendous recovery to settle the final scores at 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0, in two hours and eight minutes to advance to the second round of the Grand Slam tournament.
Being played under the roof on Centre Court, the contest displayed brilliant tennis skills from the fourth seeded Murray, who toiled hard to overcome the devastating start of Gimeno-Traver. The hard-hitting Spaniard took off the
opener in a blistering manner, outplaying Murray at 6-4 to get one up in the contest. It was then the sheer brilliancy of the Scot, who took the reins of the game at 3-3 in the second set and went on to win the following 15 games in a row to register his first
victory at Wimbledon this year.
Murray fired 70 per cent of his serve on target, including 13 thudding aces and amazingly reeled of 53 out of 59 first serve points in the contest to come out as the winner in the end. He suffered only one serve break in the opening
set and converted seven of his 15 break opportunities en route to victory.
59th ranked Gimeno-Traver was off to an astonishing start, taking down the sluggish fourth seed early but tended to lose his focus in the later parts of the game. 24 unforced errors were reported on
his part, assisting Murray to an emphatic victory. The Spaniard drew the first blood by breaking Murray’s serve to seal the first set at 6-4, threatening an upset to the local English fans.
Murray lived up to the expectations of the local crowd and turned the tide in the following set, when he registered his first serve break of the matchup. He clinched the second set at 6-3 and then carried on his winning momentum
till the conclusion of the contest.
“I changed the way I was playing,” Murray said after winning his match. “I changed the way I was returning, especially. I was missing returns off the first serve, and really just giving him a chance to dictate a lot of the points.”
Murray has been in the semi-finals of Wimbledon Championships for the last two years and was also the finalist at the Australian Open this year, when he got defeated by the world number two, Novak Djokovic. He will take on either
Tobias Kamke of Germany or Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia in the second round of the mega event.
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