Granollers/Lopez prevail over Farah/Giraldo to capture title – Credit Agricole Suisse Open 2012
Top seeded Spanish duo of Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez grabbed their second tour level team trophy of the year, after downing Robert Farah and Santiago Giraldo of Colombia in straight sets 6-4, 7-6(9) in the final of Credit
Agricole Suisse Open in Gstaad.
The Spaniards took an hour and 37 minutes to undo their opponents on Sunday.
There was no strike from either of the two teams in the first half of the opening set, as Granollers/Lopez and Farah/Giraldo held their serve convincingly to take the score to 3-3. The Spaniards raised their level at that moment,
allowing their rivals to win just two points in the next couple of games, grabbing a 5-3 lead. Granollers and Lopez did not allow the Colombian tandem to strike back, closing the first set 6-4.
The Spanish team gave varied performance on their serve, being unable to hit any ace and making one double fault. The right-handers did well to hit 70 percent of the first serves and convert 16 of the 19 of them into points. The
Spaniards did not provide even a single break opportunity to Farah and Giraldo, utilising one of the four of their own in the opener.
Granollers and Lopez started the second set from where they had stopped in the first, nailing a break in the opening game and holding their next serve to gain a 2-0 advantage. Though, Farah and Giraldo succeeded in making a comeback
on this occasion, capturing two back to back and equalling the proceedings at 2-2. None of the two teams managed to strike in the rest of the set, taking the score to 6-6 and forcing a tie-breaker. The contest went back and forth after that but then both combinations
tied the score at 4-4. Granollers/Lopez and their Colombian opponents went neck to neck till 9-9 but then the Spanish team snatched two in a row, sealing it 7-6(9).
Ranked sixth in the world, Granollers and Lopez failed to save the one break point they faced but compensated that by converting one of the five he received in the second set.
Granollers said after the match, "I'm very happy to win here with Marc. We have been fighting to reach such titles for a long time. We played very well this week."
These two will also be playing together at the London Olympics after a few days. Granollers added, "We go there with a lot of confidence after winning here. However the tournament will be on a completely different surface and we
will give our best."
The Spanish tandem is in top form recently, as they finished runner-ups at the Vegeta Croatia Open last week.
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