Gastao Elias flattens Thiago Alves in the first round – Sao Leopoldo Challenger 2011
Gastao Elias of Portugal squared-off against the Brazilian, Thiago Alves, in the first round of the Sao Leopoldo Challenger tournament, hosted in Brazil, on Tuesday November 1st. The encounter lasted for an hour and
twenty-five minutes with a final score of 6-2, 6-4 in favour the Portuguese.
It was the second encounter between the two players and Elias took full advantage of this opportunity and took his revenge of the earlier loss this year by surmounting the 29-year-old Brazilian at his home soil. He had lost four
matches in his last nine encounters. But seeing the sublime form of Alves and so many factors like home crowd and familiar atmosphere running in favour of him, no one could write-off his chances as well.
Crowd was extremely disappointing to see their home boy surrendering in the early stages of the match and trying his level best to compete and bring some glory to them. Brazilian seemed to have not settled in the scenario at all
and his movements were limited, probably due to fatigue.
Visitor lost his earlier match against Alves by retiring due to an injury so it was never a convincing victory for the Brazilian who was destroyed in this match with brilliance and shear power.
20-year-old Portuguese kicked-off the match in dashing fashion and struck two aces upfront in the first game to silence the spectators. The see-saw battle for the first three games and score was 2-1 in favour of the visitor.
Elias broke his opponent’s serve in the fourth game and then again in the sixth game to take the score to 5-1. In the next two games both players held on to their serve and set was over in a flash. It was a pretty tamed performance
by the Brazilian who couldn’t make any sort of impact. Such a sub-standard performance by the home boy left the spectators dejected.
Second set started in a dramatic fashion as both players exchanged breaks in the first four games and pushed the score to 2-2. Finally home boy held his serve and delighted the crowd. Both players met blow to blow of each other
and pushed the score to 4-4.
The most important break of the game came in the ninth game when visitor broke local boy’s serve and earned a major advantage to win the game; he held on to his serve and sealed the second set victory as well.
A double-fault in the ninth game was one of the major factors that led to the Brazilian's downfall and provided an opportunity to his opponent to break his serve. The Portuguese pocketed 37 points in the second set whilst his opponent
won 32.
Gastao Elias moves into the second round where he locks horns with the top seed Rui Machado.
Tags: