Federico Delbonis capsizes Thomaz Bellucci to progress into round three – VTR Open 2012
Biggest upset of the day was witnessed at the clay courts of Chile during the second round of VTR Open-Vina del Mar on Thursday; the 172nd ranked Argentine, Federico Delbonis, dumped the third seed Brazilian, Thomaz
Bellucci, in straight sets 6-2, 7-5. The battle lasted for one and a half hour before the 37th ranked Brazilian faced an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Argentine.
Bellucci was completely out of form and never looked comfortable on the court. He started the match in dismal fashion; lost the first serve game upfront and raised the confidence of his opponent with some miserable shot selection.
Delbonis was performing better than expected and never looked to be an inferior ranked competitor in the contest. He was on top of his game and clearly a better player on the court. He broke his opponent’s serve in the fifth game
to build on the initial lead; scores progressed to 5-1 in the meantime. Sparing just one more game for the third seed, Delbonis gobbled up the first set triumph to hint a major upset.
Once again, the third seeded Brazilian failed to hold on to the opening serve game of the set. The Argentine capitalized on the initial breakthrough and doubled the lead in the next game. The sea-saw battle continued between the
players as the scores were pushed to 4-3 in favour of the Argentine. Finally, Bellucci looked like a third seed and ousted his opponent in the eighth game to break serve and level the scores at 4-4.
Intense battle between the players continued as they look to hold on to their serves. Next two games ended with no breakthroughs and the scores moved on to 5-5. It was clear that the set was going into the tie-breaker, as the proximity
of the game style of both players was not allowing anyone to have any sort of advantage during the serve game.
Unfortunately the third seed contestant committed the fourth double-fault of the set in the eleventh game. He declined to compromise on pace on his second serve that landed just outside the bounds of the box. It was pretty harsh
but the review clearly showed that the ball was just slightly beyond the bounds prescribed for the serve. Pressure was back on the third seed and he failed to absorb it at that vital stage of the game.
Delbonis pounded on this opportunity; broke serve and successfully held the next serve game to progress into round three where he squares-off against his compatriot, the seventh seed Carlos Berlocq.
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