Guillermo Garcia-Lopez survives past Evgeny Donskoy into the round two – St. Petersburg 2012
World number 68 from Spain, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez bounced back after badly losing the first set to beat the 121st ranked, Evgeny Donskoy of Russia, in three sets 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of the St. Petersburg
Open in Russia.
Garcia-Lopez and Donskoy started the contest by breaking each other in the first two games and squaring off the proceedings at 1-1. The Russian contender struck again in the third and seventh game, holding all of his own serves
to close it 6-2.
Donskoy neither hit an ace nor committed any double fault, keeping his first serve percentage at 63 and converting 10 of the 12 of them into points. The Russian player did well on the returns to his rival’s deliveries, claiming
five of the nine first and eight of the 12 second reply points in the opener.
The 22-year-old youngster was looking strong at the start of the second set too, as he nailed a break in its opening game and won his following serve to attain a 2-0 lead. However, Donskoy could not maintain his advantage, as Garcia-Lopez
hit back in the sixth one to level the score at 3-3. Serving to stay in the set at 4-5, the Russian could not hold and lost it 4-6.
Garcia-Lopez was luck to win the second set despite having pretty ordinary statistics on his serve. The Spaniard hit a single ace and committed three double faults, maintaining a first delivery percentage of merely 44 and winning
11 of the 15 points on them. However, the 6ft 2in tall played better than his opponent on the crucial moments.
In the decider, both players started by holding their serve in the first three games to take the score to 2-1 in the Spaniard’s favour. Garcia-Lopez managed to grab a breakthrough in the fourth one and capitalised on it to win
the final set 6-3.
Garcia-Lopez needed two hours and 12 minutes to undo his opponent in a closely fought encounter.
The Spanish player will take on the Belarusian qualifier, Sergey Betov, or Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi for a place in the quarter-finals.
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