Feliciano Lopez struggles past Adrian Ungur into the second round – Credit Agricole Suisse Open 2012
Fifth seed, Feliciano Lopez of Spain, survived the bashing in the first set to edge past Romania’s 102nd ranked player, Adrian Ungur, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(7) in the opening round at the Credit Agricole Suisse Open in Gstaad
on Tuesday. It took the Spaniard two hours and three minutes to oust his much lower ranked opponent in a tough match.
Lopez and Ungur started the encounter by winning their serve in the opening three games to take the score to 2-1 in the latter’s favour. The Romanian managed to strike in the fourth and consolidated on it to go up 4-1. Serving
to stay in the set at 2-5, Lopez performed below averagely and lost it 2-6.
Ungur delivered two aces and made one double fault in the opening set. The Romanian maintained a low first serve percentage of 54 but converted 10 of the 13 of them into points. The Florence, Italy resident could not answer Lopez’
powerful first serves, dropping eight of the nine first reply points but he compensated that by securing eight of the 12 on the second ones.
The second set was started in a steady manner by both contestants, as they did not drop their serve in the first six games and took the score to 3-3. Lopez stung a break in the seventh one and capitalised on that to capture it
6-4.
The Spaniard kept on producing fiery serves, banging in three aces and 69 percent of the first serves. The left-hander’s conversion rate was stunningly impressive, as he claimed 17 of the 18 first and five of the eight second delivery
points. The 30-year-old put away the only break threat he came across and utilised the one opportunity he got in the second set.
Lopez and Ungur served exceptionally well in the decider, as none of the two allowed the other to break serve throughout the set, equalising the score at 6-6 and taking it to a tie-breaker. The Spaniard captured five of the opening
six points to race to a 5-1 lead but Ungur made a dramatic comeback to even out the proceedings at 6-6. They shared the following two points to take the score to 7-7 but then Lopez hit two blistering winners and triumphed 7-6(7).
The Spaniard is slated to meet Czech Republic’s Jan Hajek in the second round. Hajek was leading 4-1 against Edouard Roger-Vasselin when the latter decider to retire with injury.
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