Denis Gremelmayr defeats Ludovic Walter; moves into second round – UNICEF Open 2011
German Denis Gremelmayr downed French qualifier Ludovic Walter in straight sets to advance into the second round of the UNICEF Open 2011, a grass court tournament held at s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
He warded off late resistance against the 28-year-old Frenchman to register a 6-3, 7-6(5) victory on Monday.
Ranked 113th in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, Gremelmayr triumphed over qualifier, ranked 170 places below him, in seventy-two minutes on their first meeting. After the victory in this Wimbledon
build-up, the German took the lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against Walter.
29-year-old German confidently entered this outdoor grass court event and convincingly held their serve in the first game of the opening set. He kept his winning ways to reel off remaining serves plausibly and converted the only
breakpoint chance he founded to his advantage to seal the opener by winning six games to three.
Gremelmayr produced a lower first serve share of 52 percent as compared to Walter’s 58 percent and registered a perfect win on it. To sugar coat the set further, he faced zero breakpoint and slammed five aces.
The higher ranked German kept momentum rolling into the final set and easily bagged his entire serves after saving both breakpoints faced. However, he failed to find a breakpoint opportunity and took the set to a tie-breaker where
he prevailed and eventually clinched the set with a 7-6(5) win.
A former world number fifty-nine, Gremelmayr hasn’t had much progress this season on ATP World Tours. However, he managed to make it into the main draw of the French Open through qualifiers but was ousted in the first round. The
German then displayed his skills at Furth Challenger where he made a semi-final berth before losing to compatriot, Jan-Lennard Struff. He then lost in the opening round at Queen’s Club but seemed to re-form his strategy in this ATP World Tour 250 series event
where he won his opening match.
Gremelmayr will next face the winner of the match between fifth seeded Finn Jarkko Nieminen and Argentinean Maximo Gonzalez and he needs to raise the bar of his game to face and overpower a seeded player.
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