Fernando Verdasco overcomes Alejandro Falla in the second round – Mutua Madrid Open 2012
Seeded 15th in the draw, Fernando Verdasco survived the scare of losing the first set to defeat Colombia’s Alejandro Falla 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4 in the second round at the Mutua Madrid Open in Spain on Wednesday.
Falla struck in the very first game of the match to move ahead 1-0 but Verdasco broke back immediately to level it at 1-1. They held their serve in the next 10 to take the score to 6-6 and force a tie-breaker. The Colombian and Spaniard went at par till 4-4 but then Falla claimed last three points to seal it 7-6(4).
The Colombian fired three aces and 67 percent of the first serves, converting 22 of the 35 of them into points. He did averagely on the second deliveries and first returns, as he won nine of the 17 and seven of the 15 points on them respectively.
Falla and Verdasco did not allow each other to break in the first six games of the second set, taking the score to 3-3. The Spaniard hit a blow in the seventh and made the most of it to triumph 6-4.
Verdasco put in 72 percent of the first serves and captured 17 of the 21 points on them. The left-hander had no answer to Falla’s strong first deliveries, as he lost 13 of the 16 points on them but responded quite well to the second ones, pocketing five of the nine points.
In the decider, both players swapped a single blow in the first four games to even out the score at 2-2. Verdasco clinched breakthrough in the fifth and held his following serve to build a 4-2 advantage. The Spaniard maintained his advantage till the end to close it 6-4.
Verdasco required two hours and 45 minutes to come out victorious from a marathon match.
The Spaniard has never won the Mutua Madrid Open title but loves playing at his home ground. He said, after winning his last match, "It is really special for me to play in Madrid; it's my city. Of course to play in front of my family and friends is always really nice and I always try to do my best and try to control the feelings and emotions you have when you play here.”
Verdasco will lock horns with second seed, Rafael Nadal, in the round of 16.
Nadal said, about his match against Verdasco, "I played much better than I expected. I am very happy to be in the third round and tomorrow I will probably have a very difficult match against [Fernando] Verdasco."
Ranked 19th in the world, Verdasco has lost all the 13 meetings between these two so far.
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