Gilles Simon pounds Ryan Sweeting in the first round – Brisbane International 2012
French top seed, Gilles Simon, placed himself in the second round draw of the Brisbane International tournament by defeating the American professional, Ryan Sweeting, in the first round. The match was contested on hard courts
in Brisbane, Australia, with both players squaring off for the first time in their professional career. The world number 12 wasted no time in ousting the American tennis ace, taking just over an hour and 22 minutes to nail down his opponent in straight sets,
6-3, 6-4.
The match started off with an exchange of a couple of serve breaks, hinting the lack of confidence in both players for they had a dismal run of form towards the end of last season. Soon after the second game, both players
settled in and held their serves in the next two games to push the score to 2-2. Simon held his serve in the following game and moved the scores to 3-2 in his favour.
Sweeting was pretty sub-standard in the sixth game, as he gave two points with couple of unforced errors in the form of double faults. This was highly uncharacteristic of the American; probably the match pressure played his
part. The top seed capitalized on these mistakes and bagged the first breakpoint that gave him a lead of two games at 4-2.
No further breaks in the first set saw the American trailing one set down. The performance in the last three games from the American was pretty tamed and it seemed like he had settled for a trail of one set already.
Start to the second was disastrous for the inferior ranked American, as he lost the first game on his serve. He seemed to have lost interest in bouncing back and making it interesting. He made no effort to push the top seed
out of his comfort zone and seemed to have surrendered way too early. Simon held his serve and took 2-0 upfront.
Both players held their respective serves and the score kept ticking over with no major drama. One ace apiece from both contestants and a single opportunity for Sweeting brought some delight to the crowd but apart from that,
the match was clearly one sided. Two games lead for the top seed stayed till the end and he managed to place a berth in the second round draws with this triumph. It will be interesting to see which competitor will be tough enough to stun the top seed in the
advanced stages of the tournament.
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