German Florian Mayer defeats Marcel Granollers; leads tie against Spain at Power Horse World Team Cup
Germany’s domination continued at the Power Horse World Team Cup, as Florian Mayer edged past Marcel Granollers of Spain in his singles rubber on Tuesday.
Mayer laboured hard for two hours and twenty minutes to conclude the three-setter 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, giving the perfect start to Team Germany in its second tie of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 250 tournament.
Germany hasn’t lost a single matchup in this edition of the World Team Cup so far, beating Serbia 3-0 in her last encounter. It’s the fourth consecutive win the German players have secured in the tournament. Spain on the other
hand, has suffered a 1-2 defeat at the hands of the strong Russian squad earlier this week and is still struggling to bounce back in to the competition.
Mayer and Granollers had faced each other for the first time and the German took very little time to get his eye in the game. Granollers had a brilliant start to win the opening set comprehensively but went to a drastic slump in
the following sets to end the contest on the losing side. Mayer was off to a sloppy start but gathered up pace as the game proceeded. The German reeled off the last two sets to win the first rubber for his team in its second tie of the tournament.
The Spaniard had a number of chances in the game but he frittered away most of them carelessly to remain at a disadvantage. Granollers crafted 12 opportunities to break the opponent’s serve but converted merely two of them in the
entire contest, whereas Mayer cashed in four out of his seven break points en route to victory.
The opener took off with both contestants exchanging a serve break each. The Spaniard took edge over the German by bagging sufficient points in the opener to come on top. A crucial break from Granollers in the tenth game marked
an end to the first set at 6-4 but Mayer made an amazing comeback in the following set to stun the Spaniard. The German stung the only serve break of the second set came in the seventh game and Mayer took the momentum from if to bag the set at 6-4 to level
the contest 1-1.
The German had little problem in taking down the Spaniard in the decisive set, breaking him twice to reach 6-2 and register his 24th win of the running ATP season. The next singles rubber is scheduled to be played between
Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany and Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain on Wednesday. The Spaniard must win his singles matchup if Team Spain is to stay alive in the tie against the host nation.
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