Ivan Ljubicic strains heavily to dump Florent Serra in round one – 2012 Open 13
Former world number three, Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia, had to go through a rough ride before overcoming the local wildcard entrant, Florent Serra, in the first round of the Open 13 on Monday afternoon. The 42nd ranked Croat veteran sweated for two
hours and nine minutes to wrap up the three-setter at 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-3, to move into the second round of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) 250 event in Marseille, France.
The seventh seeded Croatian was off to a flying start in the opening set, blasting his way past the world number 143 in a comprehensive manner but tend to lose some of his steam in the following set to let him back in business. Serra bounced back superbly
in the second set and registered the equaliser in the tie-breaker to come on even terms with Ljubicic in the match. The 32-year-old brought all of his experience together in the decider and some quality hitting from his racquet took him to a hard-fought victory
in the end.
Ljubicic kept his clean sheet against the Frenchman, beating him for the fifth consecutive time in singles encounters. Their last meeting was held in 2009 in Lyon, France, with the Croat thumping Serra in front of his home crowd to reach the semi-finals
of the event. He had to work a bit harder in his Monday’s matchup but his true class and superior game play was sufficient to take down the 30-year-old French. Ljubicic was outstanding with his serve in the match and amazingly fired 27 aces to dismantle the
confidence of his opponent. The bald-headed Croatian dropped just 13 points on his first serve clinching 53 out of 66 points en route to victory.
"First and second set, I was serving really well," said Ljubicic. "I never felt in trouble in terms of can I lose this; it was just after the second set because I felt like it would have been nice if I closed it in two. I was struggling in the third, the court
is pretty quick. Of course, not playing a lot of matches makes things a little bit more difficult. It was great to get a win. This year was difficult for me. I had some tough losses, tough matches, so it's really nice to be back to winning ways."
The seventh seeded Ljubicic will take on the winner of the match between Paul-Henri Mathieu and Karol Beck in the second round draw of the tournament.
Tags: