Igor Kunitsyn breaks down Roberto Bautista-Agut in final qualies – Valencia Open 500 2011
Russian, Igor Kunitsyn, squared-off against the Spanish, Roberto Bautista-Agut, in the final qualifying round of the Valencia Open 500, contested in Spain, on Sunday October 30th. Both contenders were facing each other
for the first time and it was the visitor who clinched the victory in straight sets with 6-4, 7-6(6) and marched into the main round of the tournament in an hour and forty-six minutes.
It was a straight forward triumph for Kunitsyn; he was in better form compared to his opponent who had lost four matches from his last nine encounters; local crowd was ecstatic to see their hot favourite battle it out to make it
to the first round of the tournament. World No.63 defeated World No.184 in straight sets.
Bautista-Agut kicked-off proceedings in exciting fashion, striking two serves in succession in the first game and broke his competitor’s serve in the second game to take 2-0 lead. Crowd was roaring with joy but suddenly a major
turnaround in the match came when the visitor broke the local boy’s serve twice in succession and held on his serves to take the lead of two games that lasted till the end.
The next two games saw both players exchanging breaks. Set finished off with 71 points played in total and Russian earned 54% of them to bag the first set and march into the second leaving his opponent trailing one set down.
Brazilian was terrific with his first serve success rate but failed to reflect the same kind of winning rate with his second serves and only managed to secure 18% points from them. This was the major factor that needed to be considered
if home boy had to make any sort of impact in the second set.
Trailing one set down and struggling hard to stop his opponent from breaking time and again, Brazilian came out with a different strategy and went out there with all-round onslaught. He hammered every ball across the court and
in the meantime lost few points by over hitting the ball sometimes.
Russian was pushed on the back foot throughout the second set but several unforced errors helped him to clinch few crucial points that kept his chances alive. In the fifth and sixth game both players exchanged breaks and kept the
score neck to neck until the twelfth game.
Tie-breaker was enforced and again aggressive play from the Brazilian earned him the lead but then two consecutive unforced errors and an ace from his opponent left him far behind. He was becoming increasingly predictable with
his shot selection and a slight guile might have forced the match into the third set.
Igor Kunitsyn squares-off against the Spanish, Juan Carlos Ferrero in the first round.
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