Daniel Gimeno-Traver eases past Dominic Thiem to advance into second round – Bet-At-Home Cup 2011
World number 80, Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver stomped over a local wild card entrant, Dominic Thiem in straight sets to advance into the second round of the Bet-at-home Cup 2011, an ATP World Tour 250 series event held on the
clay courts from 31st July to 6th August. The Spaniard registered a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Thiem, ranked 838 places below him, on Monday.
The Valencia native, Gimeno-Traver lost his serve once but broke the 17-year-old Austrian’s serve four times to earn a straight set victory in just sixty-six minutes. They were facing each other for the first time at the Tennis
stadium Kitzbuhel and after earning this success, the Spaniard took lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against the local rising star. He is now eyeing for the €64,000 prize money and had confidently advanced into the second round.
25-year-old Spaniard pinged the balls expertly onto the lines to bag in entire serves. When leading 5-4, he converted a breakpoint opportunity to his advantage to clinch the opener with a 6-4 score line. Gimeno-Traver wasn’t threatened
throughout the set and capitalised on one out of four breakpoint chances to his advantage. Along with this, he took full advantage of the five double faults Thiem committed and put the cherry on the set by registering a perfect win on his much better first
serve share.
Gimeno-Traver went out of control in the final set as he unleashed his true colours to reel off first five games in a row before the teenager could hold on. Although he lost his serve in the seventh game, the Spaniard broke the
youngster’s serve again in the last game to win the set with an assuring 6-2 win. He clobbered a much better first serve share of 61 percent as compared to Thiem’s 33 percent and earned a fabulous 82 percent win on it. He then mustered the set brilliantly
after cashing in on all three breakpoint chances to his advantage.
Gimeno-Traver had a terrible season so far as he started the season with a ten match losing streak. His best performance was reaching the third round at Madrid ATP Masters 1000 event through qualifiers but fell to his losing ways
after it. However, the Spaniard seemed to have re-structured his form and made a brilliant opening at this clay court event.
Next challenge for the Spaniard is the top seeded Argentinean Juan Ignacio Chela who received a bye from the opening round to reach this spot. He made a final berth at Buenos Aires before losing to top seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro
and clinched the title at Dusseldorf.
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