Gerard Granollers takes down Jaime Pulgar-Garcia in the opening round – Open Castilla y Leon 2011 CH
Local wildcard entrant, Gerard Granollers, beat his fellow compatriot and qualifier, Jaime Pulgar-Garcia, in the opening round of Open Castilla y Leon on Monday afternoon.
The three-set thriller was played on the hard courts of Segovia, Spain, with the two local players battling it hard to come out as the winner. Granollers claimed victory at 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-3, after straining for two hours and twenty
minutes of exhausting play. The other Spaniard competitor, Pulgar-Garcia also fought very well in the contest but it was just a matter of time that he failed to bag sufficient points to take down his opponent.
Granollers took the opening set after a stiff contest with his countryman but dropped the next set to let Pulgar-Garcia back in the game at 1-1. The Spanish qualifier failed to sustain his momentum in the final set and succumbed
to let Granollers in to the second round of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Challenger Tour event.
Granollers crafted 15 break opportunities in the matchup but only three conversions of them proved sufficient to close out victory for him. Pulgar-Garcia also struck three serve breaks in the game and remained competitive in the
matchup till the last minute but his opponent was phenomenal with bagging crucial points in the game to clinch victory in the end.
The opening set took off with a trade of serve breaks from both sides, followed by a regular game, which took the scores to 6-6. Granollers took 21, while his opponent bagged 28 first serve points in the opener to reach the tie
breaker round. Pulgar-Garcia crumbled in the tie breaker and bestowed the first set to his opponent at 6-7(4) to give him a one-set lead in the contest.
The first serve break of the second set came in the ninth game when Pulgar-Garcia turned the tables on his rival to win the set at 6-4, levelling the competition at one-all. Tide turned in the final set once again, with Granollers
launching a series of stacking moves upon Pulgar-Garcia to push him out of the competition. Pulgar-Garcia suffered two serve breaks from his fellow Spaniard before he surrendered in the third set at 3-6 to let Granollers away a comprehensive victory in the
end.
Up next for Granollers in the coming round is the second seeded Frenchman, Nicolas Mahut, who defeated Sebastian Rieschick of Germany in the opening round to meet the Spaniard for a place in the quarter-finals of the tournament.
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