Gregoire Burquier edges past Evgeny Donskoy to reach the final – Open Castilla y Leon 2011 CH
Unseeded in the tournament, Gregoire Burquier of France continued with his brilliant form to overcome the Russian opponent, Evgeny Donskoy, in the semi-final of Open Castilla y Leon on Saturday afternoon.
The competition took place on the hard courts of Segovia, Spain, with the French competitor winning the three-set thriller at 7-6(5), 6-7(2), 6-3, to make a place in the final of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Challenger
Tour event. Burquier took two hours and thirty two minutes to dispose of the Russian opponent from the tournament after a sweating contest with him.
Both contestants stretched each other to their limits and exhibited a great game of professional tennis to amuse the local crowd. Burquier took the opening set in the tie breaker round but Donskoy did the same in the following
set to make a strong comeback in the game. A decisive third set was enforced and the French cruised through it to bag victory and place in the final of the tournament to have a title shot.
Action started right from the beginning of the matchup, with Burquier breaking his opponent’s serve in his very first game to race away to 3-0 lead in the opening set. Donskoy retaliated a couple of games later and broke the French
serve to level the scores at 3-3. Another exchange of serve breaks was seen later in the set to drag the game into a tie breaker round at 6-6. The Russian failed to sustain his momentum in the decider and fell to his opponent with ease at 6-7(5), letting him
get the upper hand in the contest.
The following set was also a replication of the first one, with the two contestants trading two serve breaks each to dead lock the scores at 6-6, imposing a tie breaker round once again. Donskoy kept focused in the game this time
round and won the tie breaker to bag the second set at 7-6(2), to take the game in the third set.
The final set witnessed just one serve break, which came from Burquier and proved sufficient for him to wrap up victory at 6-3. Burquier’s victory sends him in the final of Open Castilla y Leon, where he will face the third seeded
Slovakian, Karol Beck, for a shot at the Challenger Tour title. Beck made it to the final of the tournament after outplaying Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland in straight sets 7-6(7), 6-2 in the semi-final round.
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