Diego Junqueira stuns seasoned Igor Andreev; set to face Soderling – SkiStar Swedish Open 2011
In perhaps the most watched match on Tuesday at the Bastad Tennis Courts, Diego Junqueira met his challenger Igor Andreev to compete for a place in the match against the Swede Robin Soderling. Soderling is the first seed in the
men’s singles matches at the 2011 Swedish Open.
The match continued for an excruciating two hours and twenty minutes but the qualifier Junqueira from Argentina put up a brave fight, sustaining it till the very end and eventually ousted Igor Andreev, a Russian, from the tournament.
Match reviews had been quick to label Andreev as the potential winner because of his better statistics. Andreev, despite his gradual decline since 2008, had at one time made an appearance in the top twenty players’ list and is currently ranked 75 in the world.
Compared with him, Junqueira’s 101st rank seemed like a far cry but this match proved otherwise. The match ended 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6-4 to Junqueira’s benefit.
The past week has been especially good for Diego Junqueira. Before harnessing this three set victory over better qualified Igor Andreev, Junqueira had smooth sailing through the qualifying round of the tournament.
The first set went into tie break with both the players accumulating one serve break each. Junqueira won the tie break by scoring seven points compared to Andreev’s three. Junqueira showed considerably better first serve accuracy
(around 79%) as compared to Andreev’s 64%. However, both the players accumulated almost the same number of points from their serves and the set remained closely contested.
However, the second set swayed in Andreev’s favour and he won 3-6. Despite his lower first serve accuracy of 65% in contrast to Junqueira’s 78%, Andreev managed to get almost 80% (12 off his 15) serve points. Andreev also managed
to save two breakpoints and win two; in addition he grabbed one ace as well.
Undeterred Junqueira continued to fight the aggressive play exhibited by Andreev in the third set. Andreev registered two double faults in this set and Junqueira upped his serves to a first serve accuracy of 76%. It were the 17
out of 19 serve points that Junqueira bagged that eventually proved too much for Andreev to cope with. Other than these, Junqueira exhibited the successful reclamation of two breakpoints. The set ended at 6-4, with Junqueira winning this set and the match.
Junqueira’s skill in saving six breakpoints from the ten he faced while winning three breakpoints himself is testament to his ability. Despite being the underdog against Soderling, he is bound to put up a good fight.
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