Gilles Simon works through Yen-Hsun Lu to move into the quarterfinal – PTT Thailand Open 2011
World number 12, Gilles Simon of France, had to go through some tough times before he eventually wound up victory against the 68th ranked, Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei, in the second round of the PTT Thailand Open on
Wednesday afternoon.
The third seeded Frenchman took two hours and fifty four minutes to wrap up the three-set thriller 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-4, making it to the quarter-finals of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 250 tournament.
Simon kept his clean record against Lu in singles encounters, defeating the Taiwanese for a third time in the current ATP season. Their last encounter was held in the opening round of the Australian Open, where Simon stood victorious
6-7(3), 6-2, 6-4, 6-2, after dropping the opening set. The Wednesday’s victory was Simon’s 37th
win in the running year and he extended his all-time head-to-head series against Lu by 4-0.
26-Year-old Simon was off to a sloppy start in the opener, dropping the first set tie breaker to fall on his back foot. He regrouped in the following set and gathered up pace steadily to make his way back in business and then went
on to finish the matchup in his favour.
The French competitor fired 12 aces and clinched 47 out of 68 first serve points in the matchup en route to victory. Lu also belted 11 aces and bettered Simon with 55 first serve points in the game but four crushing serve breaks
from Simon left him answerless in the end.
The Taiwanese took hold of the opening set tie breaker to get 1-0 early in the competition and continued with his aggressive tennis in the following set as well. He broke the French serve in the sixth game of the second set but
Simon nailed two timely break point conversions to pocket the set at 7-5, levelling the matchup at 1-1. Once getting his eye in the game, the third seeded French never dropped his serve in the final set and one serve break proved sufficient for him to conclude
victory at 6-4.
Simon will take on the unseeded German competitor, Matthias Bachinger, in the next encounter to fight for a place in the semi-finals of the PTT Thailand Open. Bachinger reached the quarter-final draw after defeating the local wildcard
contestant, Danai Udomchoke, in the second round of the tournament.
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