Ivan Ljubicic sweeps past Michael Llodra into 2nd round – Davidoff Swiss Indoors 2011
World number thirty-one, Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia tumbled over French Michael Llodra, ranked two spots above him in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, at the Davidoff Swiss Indoors 2011, an indoor hard court tournament
taking place at St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland. He registered a 7-5, 6-4 victory over the 31-year-old Frenchman to secure a second round spot on Tuesday.
A former world number three, Ljubicic stomped over the Frenchman in eighty-one minutes on their fourth duel. After earning this straight set victory, the Croat not only extended lead in the head-to-head series by 3-1 against Llodra
but also advanced into the next round of this ATP World Tour 500 series event.
32-year-old Croat confidently entered the Swiss hard courts and brushing off the only breakpoint came across, he bagged entire serves. In addition to this, he capitalised on one out of two breakpoint opportunities to his advantage
in the eleventh game to clinch the opener by winning seven games to five.
Ljubicic manipulated a poor first serve share of 44 percent as compared to the Frenchman’s 53 percent but registered a fabulous 75 percent win on it. Further mustering the set, he fired four ferocious aces and capitalised on the
many errors Llodra committed.
The beaming Croat kept momentum floating into the final set and held his opening serve confidently. He got the first blood in the third game and later kept remaining serves to seal the set with a 6-4 victory.
Ljubicic faced zero breakpoint and cashed in the only breakpoint chance to his advantage. He manipulated a lower first serve share but registered an incredible 93 percent win on it. Above all, he put a cherry on the set by smacking
five aces.
The Croat will next face the winner of the match between sixth seeded Serb Janko Tipsarevic and German Florian Mayer.
His countryman Ivan Dodig, however, faced a different fat. He fell to a local star Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets in almost one and half hour.
Dodig failed to defend the only breakpoint faced and above this, he squandered the only breakpoint opportunity he founded. As a result, he suffered a 4-6 defeat in the opening set.
In the second set, the Croat failed to find any breakpoint opportunity and on the other hand, he dusted away only two out of three breakpoints came across. Eventually he fell to Wawrinka with a 4-6 score line.
The Swiss, on the other hand, advaced to face the winner of the match between second seeded British Andy Murray and Dutch Robin Haase.
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