Diego Junqueira eases past Antonio Veic to advance into second round – Studena Croatia Open 2011
Argentinean Diego Junqueira dumped a local wild card entrant, Antonio Veic in straight sets at the Studena Croatia Open Umag 2011, an ATP World Tour 250 series held on the clay court tournaments in Umag, Croatia. He registered
a 6-4, 7-5 success over the 23-year-old Croat to secure a second round spot on Monday.
World number 101, Junqueira took one hour and fifty-three minutes to triumph over the wild card on their first meeting. He not only advanced into the second round but also took lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against the
Croat.
The Buenos Aires native, Junqueira made a thunderous impact on reaching the court as he got the critical break in the very first game. However, he lost his serve in the proceeding game but converted his second breakpoint opportunity
to his advantage in the ninth game to take the lead again. The Argentinean then held his serve in the tenth game to pocket the opener with a 6-4 score line. He clobbered a higher first serve share of 65 percent as compared to Veic’s 43 percent and earned a
convincing 63 percent win on it.
The 30-year-old kept momentum flowing into the final set and broke the Croat’s serve in the first game again. However, Junqueira repeated history and gift away his serve to love in the following game. After exchanging series of
break, the Argentinean broke the youngster’s serve again in the eleventh game to eventually seal the set with a 7-5 win. He fended off half of the six breakpoints faced but cashed in on all four breakpoint opportunities to win comfortably. Junqueira also took
full advantage of the five double faults Veic committed and produced an produced an amazing first serve share of 81 percent as opposed to Croat’s 45 percent.
Up next for the Argentinean is the winner of the match between seventh seeded Italian Andreas Seppi and Serbian qualifier Dusan Lajovic. Junqueira needs to improve his defensive abilities to advance further in this tournament and
to overpower a seeded player. He also needs to practice more to bid for his maiden ATP title.
In the only other first round match, fan favourite and the eighth seed, Ivan Dodig crashed out to Spaniard Albert Ramos in a three set mouth watering match. Dodig went into overdrive mode to pull out the victory in the second set
but ran out of steam in the decider to exit from the opening round with disappointment all over his face.
The Spaniard moves on ahead to face either Italian qualifier Gianluca Naso or Croatian wild card entrant Mate Delic.
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