Feliciano Lopez and Mikhail Youzhny sail into second round of Rotterdam Open
Spain’s Feliciano Lopez recorded his third win for the year today as he defeated unseeded Florian Mayer from Germany in straight sets in Rotterdam. Lopez is currently playing his fourth tour level event for the year at the 2011
ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam this week.
In his fifth appearance at the event, Lopez started his campaign in the tournament as he met Mayer for the third time on the courts. Lagging 0-1 in the head-to-head score on hard courts previously, Lopez succeeded in levelling
his score with the German as he defeated the latter in almost an hour.
The Spaniard scored an impressive 75 per cent points on his service as opposed to the German’s meagre 67 per cent in the opening set. The Spaniard successfully managed to save three of three break points. Moreover, the fact that
he also converted one of the break point opportunities helped Lopez in clinching a 6-3 win for himself in the first set.
With a 1-0 lead in the set score, Lopez recorded a 100 per cent winning percentage on his first serve in the second set. Lopez was able to wrap up his straight sets victory with a 6-4 win in the second set and lost only four points
to his opponent on service.
The hard-hitting Spaniard struck a total of 12 aces as opposed to Mayer’s one. After scoring a total of 79 per cent points on his service and losing only 11 of 52 points, Lopez was able to move on ahead in the event. Lopez will
next play either second seed Andy Murray or Marcos Baghdatis.
However, Lopez’s compatriot Marcel Granollers was not as lucky as he was. After finding himself pitted against the sixth seeded Russian, Mikhail Youzhny, Granollers exited the event after 90 minutes of play.
Youzhny dominated the court from the start as he recorded a perfect 100% winning percentage on his first serve in their first ever meeting on court. The Russian was able to clinch a 6-2 victory for himself as he converted two of
six break point opportunities.
The second set, however, saw some resistance from the Spaniard. Determined not to give up without a fight, Granollers pushed the set into a tiebreaker. Despite trying his best to keep up, Granollers lagged 2-4 early into the tiebreaker.
However, bouncing back, Granollers managed to tie the score and keep it tied at 12 points. On the 13th point, Youzhny caught a break and clinched the tiebreaker 8-6, winning two successive points.
Youzhny struck only two aces and lost 23 of 64 points on service to secure a straight, though not so simple, sets win for himself. The Russian will now face local Thiemo De Bakker on Thursday, 10 February in the second round of
the event.
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