Dmitry Tursunov edges past Julien Benneteau into quarterfinal – Kremlin Cup 2011
Sixth seeded Russian, Dmitry Tursunov edged past Julien Benneteau into the round of eight at the 2011 Kremlin Cup on Thursday, 20th October at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, Russia. The local took nearly one hour and
forty minutes to secure a 6-3, 7-6(1) over the lower ranked Frenchman.
In their second career meeting, the 28-year-old Russian was able to level his head-to-head score with the Frenchman. Benneteau had earlier defeated the local in the 2007 Cincinnati Masters to take a lead in the head-to-head.
Opening serve in the first set, Tursunov comfortably put himself on the scoreboard going 1-0 in the score. Riding the local support, Tursunov broke the Frenchman in the second game before holding his serve in the third to go 3-0
in the lead. Tursunov “rinsed n repeated” in the next two games, as he extended his lead to five games to none.
Turning around what seemed to be a bagel defeat, Benneteau bounced back in the sixth game as he held serve and broke the local in the seventh to reel off a total of three games to reduce the deficit to 3-5. However, the Frenchman’s
form was short-lived as the Russian served out the set in the ninth game to clinch a 6-3 win, going one up in the set score.
With five aces, the Russian hit an amazing 93 percent on his first serve as he clinched a total of 27 of 43 points to lead the set score.
Down but not out, Benneteau came back fighting in the second set. Although he failed to clinch any breakpoint opportunity to his advantage he still managed to push the Russian to eight of those. Saving two himself, the Frenchman
matched blow for blow as he kept the scoreboard ticking on even terms, pushing the set into a tiebreaker.
However, Benneteau lost steam in the tiebreaker. Managing only a single point win, Benneteau came crashing down in the tiebreaker suffering a 1-7 defeat. Reeling off seven straight points, Tursunov was able to seal his straight
sets victory and a berth in the quarterfinal of the event.
The local now moves on ahead to face the top seeded Janko Tipsarevic in a seeded last eight battle of the event. Tipsarevic battled past local Igor Kunitsyn into the final eight. Bouncing back from a set down, the Serb toiled for
nearly two hours before securing a 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-0 win.
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