Feliciano Lopez battles pass Lukasz Kubot into the quarterfinal – Wimbledon Championships 2011
Ranked at number 44 in world rankings, Feliciano Lopez of Spain continued his impressive run at the Wimbledon Championships by defeating the unpredictable Pole opponent, Lukasz Kubot in the fourth round on Monday.
The unseeded Spaniard fought tooth and nail to turn the tables on the dominant Kubot, recovering from a 2-0 deficit in the contest to clinch victory in the fifth set. Lopez battled extremely hard for four hours and eighteen minutes
before he finally took down his tough competitor at 3-6, 6-7(5), 7-6(7), 7-5, 7-5, to advance to the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam tournament.
The four-hour marathon contest was stuffed with high quality tennis action throughout. Lopez had a sloppy start to the contest and dropped the first set in the opening 28 minutes of play to get on the back foot early. He slumped
further in the game to gift away the next set to Kubot after a stiff fight but it turned out to be the running point of the match. The Spaniard then stunned everyone present at the Court 3 at Wimbledon to reel off the following three sets in succession and
wrapped up a memorable victory to reach the round of eight.
93rd ranked Kubot has already suffered a defeat from Lopez last year, when the Spaniard ousted him in straight sets 6-3, 6-3, from the round of 64 of the Madrid Masters. It appeared for a while that the Pole competitor
was well on his way for a comprehensive straight sets victory after bagging the opening two sets but a dramatic turnaround from the Spaniard squandered away all the hopes of Kubot.
The Pole competitor stung an early serve break to clinch the opening set at 6-3 but had to toil harder to bag the second set in the tie breaker round at 7-6(5). Kubot continued with his aggression in the third set as well but Lopez
replied equally well to hold serve in all games, dragging the set into the tie breaker once again. The Spaniard held his nerve this time round and saved match point to seal the set.
Lopez got the required momentum from the third set and then went on to reel of the following two set at 7-5, 7-5, to register an emphatic victory and booked a place in the quarter-final round of the tournament. He will take on
the world number four, Andy Murray of Great Britain, in the next match for a place in the semis.
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