Daniel Gimeno-Traver prevails over Florent Serra in the first round – St. Petersburg Open 2012
World number 93, Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain, survived an early threat to beat the 115th ranked player, Florent Serra, in straight sets 7-6(5), 6-2 in the opening round of the St. Petersburg Open in Russia.
Serra made a brilliant start to the match, breaking Gimeno-Traver in the first and third game to race to a 3-0 lead. However, the Spaniard came back in style, winning the following three to square it off at 3-3. None of the two
players managed to claim a breakthrough in the rest of the set, taking the score to 6-6 and forcing a tie-breaker. Gimeno-Traver earned an early mini-break and maintained that advantage till the end to grab it 7-6(5).
The Spanish player took risks on his serve, hitting five aces and also committing a couple of double faults. The 6ft 1in tall player kept his first serve percentage at 63 and clinched 14 of the 25 of them into points. The Castellon,
Spain resident could not save both break points he faced but managed to balance that by converting two of the six he received in the opener.
In contrast to the first set, Gimeno-Traver and Serra made a stable start in the second one, holding their serve in the opening four games to equalise the score at 2-2. It was an all Gimeno-Traver show after that, as he grabbed
four back to back to close it 6-2.
The Spaniard matched his first set’s performance of five aces and a couple of double faults, though, the 27-year-old’s first serve percentage went down to 42. The right-hander stunned his opponent with his superb conversion rate,
securing the entire 10 first and seven of the 14 second delivery points. The Valencia, Spain born did not face even a single break point and converted two of the four he created on the Frenchman’s serve in the second set.
Gimeno-Traver needed one hour and 31 minutes to clinch this win against the Frenchman and booked his place in the last 16.
The Spanish participant will take on the second seed, Denis Istomin, or Lukasz Kubot in the second round.
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