Benoit Paire stuns locals Simone Bolelli in 1st round – San Marino CEPU Open 2011 CH
Benoit Paire, Frenchman, ousted local Simone Bolelli at the Centro Tennis Cassa di Risparmio di Fonte dell'Ovo in the City of San Marino on Tuesday, 9th August. Playing their 1st rounder at the San Marino
CEPU Open 2011, the two head stormed each other until the last game of the match. The fixture ended at 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-2 for the Frenchman.
Playing on the marvellous red clay, the two clashed head to head for the first time ever. Bolelli, 25-years-old, had his hopes shattered by the Frenchman challenger rather he was more devastated for the fact that the he was playing
in front of a local crowd.
Ranked as world No.135, Bolelli had a tough 10 match run winning just 5 of them. The 25-year-old had his best rankings in 2009 when he got ranked as the world No.36. The Italian had been a successor at the Rome Challenger earlier
this year in May when he defeated Eduardo Schwank after being one set down.
However the Italian’s journey ended up when the French world No.119 blistered through the final set knocking the local lad out of the ATP Challenger tour event.
The match started off with Paire serving for the opener. Winning on respective serves, the two levelled the scores at every number. The twists came in the mid set and at the end when in game 7 Bolelli broke the Frenchman and lost
a breakpoint in the next. The Italian won another breakpoint in game 11 and once again lost one in the following game leading to a tiebreaker.
Bolelli stormed the tiebreaker and took away the first set winning 7-6(5) and led the match 1-0.
Starting the second set, Bolelli seemed stronger that the first one. Winning the opener, the Italian won his first breakpoint of set 2 and led 2-0. The 22-year-old Frenchman broke into the Italians defence winning game 3, 1-2.
The scores then levelled once again at 2-2 with Paire winning game 4 as well.
Paire struggled as his defence was once again broken by the Italian stallion in game 6, however, regained himself a breakpoint in the next. Winning game 8 the scores once again levelled up at 4-4. Starting off with game 11, Bolelli
blundered and gave away a breakpoint that eventually led to his set loss 5-7. The two once again were on level terms after set 2.
The decider set went off with a disaster for the local lad. Bolelli lost a breakpoint in the opening game going down one game to zero. Paire smashed the next to take a 2-0 lead. As the Italian seemed gaining up winning game 3,
the 22-year-old staggered the Italian in the next three games and took the score to 5-1.
Paire won 1 out of the following 2 games bagging the set and the match with a surprising victory. Devastated from the loss, the Italian hand shook the youngster to appreciate his play.
The Frenchman now sits in the second round to face Nikola Ciric of Serbia for a quarter-final seat.
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