Daniel Gimeno-Traver progresses into the third round of Mutua Madrid Open
World number sixty one, Daniel Gimeno-Traver beat all odds to overcome the eighth seeded Austrian, Jurgen Melzer in the second round of the 2011 Mutua Madrid Open on Wednesday. The 25-year-old Spaniard took down his Austrian opponent
after a gruelling two-set matchup, 7-6(8), 6-3, in one hour and thirty four minutes.
Gimeno-Traver, who is 25-year-old, reached the third round of a Masters event for the second time in his career with the first in 2010. He had then been defeated by Gael Monfils of France failing to make it to the quarterfinals.
Melzer on the hand, made the most noticeable performance of his career at the event last year where he reached the quarterfinal defeating much skilled players like Kevin Anderson, Mardy Fish, and Fernando Verdasco before losing to Spaniard Nicolas Almagro.
In the opening set the contest was a nervy affair at times with neither of the two seeming to take the initiative but Gimeno-Traver eventually made the progress after Melzer’s serve broke down in a tie breaker. Melzer hit 76 percent
of the first serves and scored 56 percent on his first serves and 40 percent on his second serves. The Austrian had plenty of chances but he performed very poorly on the crucial points, converting just one of the three break points. Gimeno-Traver was much
more clinical, taking 100 percent of the breakpoints on return.
In the final set, with his well directed serves, Gimeno-Traver achieved 57 per cent on his first serve and 45 percent on his second serve. The Spaniard also dominated the world number eight on return department by claiming eight
more points than him. However, Melzer did well to force the match into his favour but loss in concentration resulted in a disaster for him in the second set and he lost the match with minority of scores in every area.
This was the third meeting between these two. Jurgen had defeated Gimeno-Traver in their previous encounters at the SkiStar Swedish Open and the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Shanghai to lead the series 2-0. But this time Gimeno-Traver
turned the tables and performed phenomenally well to improve his record to 2-1.
Gimeno-Traver will face Michael Llodra of France in the third round of the tournament. Llodra defeated Italian Flavio Cipolla, who was a qualifier at the tournament. The pair has never met each other at any of the ATP World Tour
events.
Other Spaniards who joined Gimeno-Traver in the third round are Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer, and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
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