Gilles Simon battles past Jimmy Wang into the third round – US Open 2012
France’s 16th seeded player, Gilles Simon advanced to the last 32, after beating Chinese Taipei’s Jimmy Wang in four sets 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the second round of the US Open in New York on Thursday.
The Frenchman needed three hours and one minute to undo his opponent in a close match.
Simon made an ideal start, as he hit a blow to the Taiwanese in the opening game and held his next serve to take a 2-0 lead. Though, Wang did not take much time to square off the score at 2-2. The Frenchman broke his opponent again
in the ninth and did not allow Wang to comeback this time, winning it 6-4.
The Taiwanese responded by capturing first three games of the second set to move ahead 3-0. Simon won the following two and shortened the deficit to 2-3 but Wang also grabbed two back to back, racing to a 5-2 lead. The trend continued,
as Simon clinched a couple of games and reduced the trail to 4-5 but then the Taiwanese broke his serve to win 6-4.
The proceedings in the third set were pretty straightforward, as Simon and Wang did not allow each other to strike in the opening eight games, equalising the score at 4-4. However, the French star managed to claim a breakthrough
at that moment and capitalised on that to grab it 6-4.
Wang was looking to level the match at two sets a piece and take it to a decider, as he nailed a break in the second game and consolidated on it to attain a 3-0 advantage. However, the Taiwanese ran out of steam after that, as
he succeeded in securing only one game after that and lost six, dropping it 4-6.
Simon banged in three aces and committed the same number of double faults in the match. The Frenchman’s ground strokes did not give a positive result, as he hit just 25 winners and made 38 unforced errors.
Ranked 17th in the world, Simon is now slated to meet the American number two, Mardy Fish, in the third round.
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