David Nalbandian trounces Aljaz Bedene to reach quarters – Serbia Open 2012
Fourth seed, David Nalbandian, trashed the Slovenian qualifier, Aljaz Bedene, in straight sets at the Serbia Open 2012 on Wednesday. He nudged up a 6-4, 6-3 victory against the 22-year-old to power into the final eight at this ATP (Association of Tennis
Professionals) World Tour 250 series event taking place held in Belgrade, Serbia.
The Cordoba native remained on track to grab his 12th ATP career title after outsmarting Bedene in straight sets at this red clay court event. Facing each other for the first time, Nalbandian not only edged in the FedEx ATP Head 2 Head series
by 1-0 against the world number 156 but also secured a place in the quarter-finals.
Bedene made a strong star at the SRPC Milan Gale Muskatirovic and held his opening serve to love. However, he swayed from his path after that and suffered the first blow in the seventh game to go 3-5 down. The youngster held his serve once more and eventually
endured a 4-6 loss.
Ranked 49th in the South African Airways ATP World Tour Rankings, Nalbandian kept his winning momentum running towards the second set and bagged the opening three games with two breaks of serve. In spite of losing his serve in the proceeding game,
he plucked his remaining serves and pulled out the victory with a 6-3 score line after cashing in another break chance in the last game.
All in all, the Argentinean veteran clobbered a lower first serve share of 52 per cent as compared to Bedene’s 61 per cent but spilled fewer errors to neutralise the effect. He also impressively availed 20 out of 26 points on his first serve share and ended
the match with 63 points.
Next in queue for the seed is the Brazilian star, Joao Souza, who registered a 4-2 retirement victory against the local wild card entrant, Dusan Lajovic, to set-up this meeting.
The second seed, Andreas Seppi, will accompany Nalbandian in the last eight. He dumped the Croatian ace, Ivan Dodig, in straight sets in one hour and 38 minutes. The Italian seed capitalised on five out of seven break chances to formulate a 6-4, 6-2 success.
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