Benoit Paire dumps Andrey Golubev to move into second round – Moselle Open 2011
Getting a wildcard entry in the tournament, Benoit Paire of France outplayed Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan in the opening round of the Moselle Open on Tuesday night.
Being played on the indoor hard courts of the Arenes de Metz, in Metz, France, the contest featured brilliant game play from the 22-year-old local contestant. Paire wrapped up the competition in straight sets 7-5, 6-2, taking one
hour and 10 minutes of play to book a place in the second round of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 250 event.
It was only the 5th victory for the 22-year-old French in the current ATP season, with nine defeats already to his name. Paire had to manoeuvre his way through the opener as Golubev posed some resistance earlier on but
the French had no real difficulty in cruising through the second set to conclude a comprehensive victory in the end.
Paire delivered just 52 per cent of his serve on target and dropped merely four points on it, reeling off 22 out of the 26 first serve points en route to victory. Golubev also seized 24 out of his 46 first serve points in the matchup
but registered just one serve break in the entire contest to finish on the losing side in the end. The Frenchman crafted 10 break opportunities in the game and converted four of them to dispose of the Kazakh opponent.
Both players took their time to settle down in the opening set earlier on but Golubev stung the first serve break of the match in the eighth game to lead 5-3. Paire retaliated immediately to bring him down back on even terms and
went on with his aggressive intent to craft another break chance in the 11th game. The first set fell to Paire’s name at 7-5, giving him a vital lead of 1-0 in the contest.
Golubev went through a terrible slump in the next set and appeared in all sorts of trouble with his shot accuracy. The Kazakh suffered two early serve breaks from Paire in the second set, falling back to trial 1-5 in the game.
The French kept pressing him to concede more errors and eventually reached victory convincingly at 6-2, to get through to the second round of the Moselle Open. Paire will take on the eighth seed, Gilles Muller of Luxembourg, in the next round for a place in
the quarter-final draws of the tournament.
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