Guillaume Rufin overwhelms Vasek Pospisil to reach the second round – Sud de France Open 2012
Local wildcard entrant, Guillaume Rufin, cleared the opening round of Sud de France after disposing the Canadian opponent, Vasek Pospisil, on Monday. 21-year-old Frenchman battled for one hour and 56 minutes to wrap up victory
in straight sets 6-4, 7-6(6).
Being played on the hard courts of the Arena Montpellier, in Montpellier, France, the contest witnessed a magnificent display of high quality tennis from the two competitors. Pospisil has been in a fine form this season and gave
some real tough time to his inferior-ranked competitor before he finally surrendered in the second set tie-breaker.
It was the first time that these two men went one-on-one against each other on a tennis court. 209th ranked Rufin had an excellent beginning to the contest’ he edged past Pospisil with some quality power-hitting to pocket
the first set with ease. The Canadian opponent came back very strongly in the following set and posed a solid resistance to the winning momentum of Rufin. The French wildcard kept his basics right and remained focused in the contest to eventually come out
at the winner.
Pospisil was brilliant with his serve game but his bleak baseline defence led him down in the contest. The unseeded Canadian banged in 11 aces off his 62 per cent precise serve and secured 41 out of 53 first serve points in the
match. Rufin lagged far behind with just 28 out of 33 first serve points but he kept winning the all-crucial points to finish on the winning side in the end. Only one serve break was registered in the entire contest and it came from the French side. Pospisil
frittered away two critical break opportunities in the contest to remain at a disadvantage in the whole matchup and had to pay the price in the end.
The opening set took off with both men playing defensive tennis to get their eye in the game. No serve breaks were seen in the opening nine games and the set kept creeping towards a tie-breaker round. A timely break point conversion
from Rufin in the 10th game suddenly closed out the set in his favour at 6-4, giving him a one-set lead in the match.
No more serve breaks were registered from any of the contestant in the remaining matchup and the second set was decided through a tie-breaker round. The decider also went neck-to-neck but Rufin delivered the final blow in the last
minute of the match to close out victory at 7-6(6).
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