David Ferrer cruises past Andreas Seppi into the quarterfinals of Open de Nice Côte d’Azur
Top seed David Ferrer of Spain scored a convincing victory against world number 51 Andreas Seppi of Italy in the second round of the Open de Nice Côte d’Azur at the Nice Lawn Tennis Club on Wednesday. The world number seven won
the match in straight sets 6-3, 6-2 in just an hour and 10 minutes.
Ferrer and Seppi held their serve in the first four games of the opening set, levelling the score at 2-2. After that, the Spaniard claimed three consecutive games, breaking his opponent in the sixth game and taking a 5-2 lead.
The Italian held his serve in the eighth game to stay in the set, reducing Ferrer’s lead to 5-3. Serving for the set at 5-3, the Spaniard produced a couple of quality serves and held his service game to win the set 6-3.
The 29-year-old fired three aces and hit a single double fault in the first set. Ferrer had a low first serve percentage as he managed to deliver just 52 percent of the first serves. However, the Spaniard amazingly converted 100
percent of them into points in the opening set. In comparison, Seppi served poorly as he was unable to hit any ace and committed two double faults. The Italian delivered a meagre 45 percent of the first serves in the opening set. The 27-year-old did not receive
any break point and failed to save one of the two break points on his own serve in the first set.
Ferrer thrashed Seppi in the second set, breaking the Italian twice and dropping just two games to clinch it 6-2.
The Spaniard hit three aces and kept his first serve percentage at 50 percent, capturing an incredible 91 percent of the points on the first serve in the second set. While, Seppi kept suffering because of his bad serving as he
delivered just 48 percent of the first serves, bagging 75 percent of the points on them in the second set. The Italian won only one of the 11 first return points in the second set. The right-handed lost both break points he faced in the second set.
Ferrer is slated to face fifth seed Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine in the quarterfinals. The Ukrainian ousted Spaniard Pere Riba, ranked 65th in the world, in straight sets 7-6(5), 7-6(5) in the second round.
Ferrer and Dolgopolov will be meeting for the fourth time. The Spaniard has won all the three previous encounters between these two.
In their first meeting, Ferrer prevailed over the 22-year-old in three sets 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the round of 64 at the Western and Southern Open last year. The Spaniard maintained his unbeaten record against Dolgopolov, beating him
in three sets 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 in the semi-finals at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel this year.
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