Carlos Berlocq destroys Gastao Elias to clinch title win – Copa Topper 2011 CH
World number 61, Carlos Berlocq won his second straight title on the Challenger Tour on Sunday, November 13th enjoying a straight sets win over Portuguese Gastao Elias in the title match of the 2011 Copa Topper, an event
on the ATP Challenger Tour held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The top seeded local met and defeated the Portuguese for the first time, securing a straight, though perhaps not so simple, 6-1, 7-6(3) victory.
Winning the toss, Berlocq opened serve and rushed into a 2-0 lead as he broke the Portuguese in the latter’s first service game. However, fighting back, Elias returned the favour as he broke the local to reduce the deficit at 1-2.
Breaking the Portuguese once more in the fourth game, Berlocq rushed into a 3-1 lead after which there was no stopping the local. Riding the cheers of the local crowd, Berlocq stood at 4-1, before converting another break point opportunity to his advantage,
eventually serving out the set at 5-1 to secure a bread stick win.
An easy breezy win in the first set created problems for the Argentine in the second set. Resistance from Elias went up a notch. The Portuguese forced the scoreboard to tick on even terms as both players comfortably held onto their
service games. Neither player let up as the score remained tied for the first eight games. An exchange of breakpoints in the ninth and tenth game again brought the set to five games each. The neck-to-neck run eventually forced the set into a tiebreaker.
However, Elias’ resistance lost steam in the tiebreaker. Berlocq rushed into an early 4-1 lead. Although Elias was able to reduce the deficit to 3-5, it wasn’t enough to bounce back in the tiebreaker. Berlocq reeled off two straight
points to clinch a 7-3 win in the tiebreaker, sealing his straight sets victory.
Although the Argentine hit no aces in the match, he complemented the absence with no double faults. This was more than enough to survive the two aces from his opponent not to mention capitalise on the five double faults from Elias.
Backed by the local crowd, Berlocq hit a 69 percent on his first serve as he registered a 65 percent win on it clinching a total of 72 to his opponent’s 52 points in the match.
Berlocq had earlier won the title in the Palermo Challenger in Italy against Adrian Ungur in October.
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