Gilles Muller overcomes Bernard Tomic to reach the second round – BNP Paribas Open 2012
Luxembourger Gilles Muller fought back after dropping the first set to upset fast rising, world number 36 Bernard Tomic, in the opener at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, USA on Friday.
Ranked 73rd in the world, Muller took one hour and 41 minutes to surprise his higher ranked opponent.
The first set went according to the expectations. The promising player from Australia, Tomic, snatched a break in the fifth game and capitalised on it to grab it 6-4.
The Australian was brilliant on the first serves, pounding five aces and hitting 87 percent of them correctly. The 19-year-old amazingly clinched 19 of the 20 points on them in the first set. In comparison, Muller was at par with
his opponent, as he fired seven aces and won 15 of the 18 first serve points.
In the second set, both players continued to bombard their powerful deliveries on each other. Tomic and Muller did not allow each other to break the serve until the end, taking it to a tie-breaker. Muller raised the level of his
game and raced to a 6-3 lead. He consolidated on the advantage and claimed it 7-6(4).
The left-hander, Muller, did not give any chance to the Australian on the first serves. The Luxembourger bombarded 10 aces and pocketed 23 of the 26 points on them.
It was one-way traffic in the decider. After losing a close second set, Tomic got disappointed ran out of steam. Muller took advantage of that and did lose even a single game, breaking the Australian three times and capturing six
games in a row to seal it 6-0.
Just like the previous two sets, Muller carried on blasting Tomic with his huge first serves. The Luxembourger smashed six aces and secured all the eight points on them. On the other hand, Tomic could not deliver any ace and double
faulted twice. The Australian was unable to create any break chance. Muller converted three of the eight he created in the final set.
The Luxembourger is drawn to take on 10th seed, Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, in the next match.
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