Arnaud Clement knocks-out Jan Hajek in second round – Orleans Challenger 2011
Arnaud Clement of France pulled up another upset in a row; this time it was Jan Hajek of Czech Republic who became the victim of some hammering from the in-form French veteran. This upset took place in France where the second round
of the Orleans Challenger Tournament was being contested. It took an hour and nine minutes for the French to hammer the Czech and advance into the last eight. The final score of the match was 6-4, 6-3.
Both players had won six out of their last nine encounters and were looking the stage was set for an epic encounter. Crowd was enthralled by their local hero and wanted him to continue his breathtaking form and stun everyone once
again and he exactly did that; didn’t disappoint anyone with his classic game play.
33-year-old, Clement started off the proceedings in great style and took the lead in the initial few games but his opponent fought back and levelled the tally at 4 games apiece. Czech had struck six aces in the mean time while
his opponent didn’t manage to score a single ace.
Anything could have happened at that point because the set was evenly poised and both players were extremely tidy and didn’t commit a lot of unforced errors. A nail biting contest that was inching towards an epic first set battle;
everyone was excited at the arena and were eagerly waiting for the contest to proceed.
The onslaught came from the in-form local boy who broke his opponent’s serve and then aced twice in the last game of the set to clinch the set. First and second serve success rates of 79% and 83% respectively in the first set helped
the French to pressurize his opponent and his control over his serves was a treat to watch.
The difference of twelve points left the ‘on paper’ match favourite Hajek with a trail of one set. He had to organize himself and make a plan against the all round onslaught of his opponent but he ran out of thoughts and was bulldozed
in the second set.
Two aces from the Czech were replied by three aces from the French and he went on to hammer Hajek in every aspect of the game; from serve to return and ace to drop shot, it was Clement all over the place.
French registered an impressive 90% first serve success rate in the second set and won the only breakpoint of the set to confirm his triumph and second upset in succession. He won 28 points in the set and helped himself to advance
into the quarter-finals of the tournament.
Arnaud Clement is all set to face-off the Spanish lucky loser, Adrian Menendez-Maceiras in the quarter-final of the tournament.
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