Ivan Navarro beats Roberto Ortega-Olmedo to qualify for the main round – Estoril Open 2012
Spanish veteran, Ivan Navarro, qualified for the main round of the Estoril Open at the expense of the 21-year-old compatriot, Roberto Ortega-Olmedo, on Monday. He bagged the win in straight sets 7-5, 6-2 and marched on after a
testing battle of an hour and 36 minutes.
Both players were very cautious at the start, not willing to risk anything and playing text book tennis. However as the time passed by, they opened up a bit and started different strokes to dismantle the confidence and concentration
of their counterpart. Suddenly, the tempo of the match changed but the breakthrough was still missing that would have given an edge to either of them.
No breakpoints for the first ten games witnessed a hint of a tie-breaker round to decide the winner the opening set. However, the inferior ranked Spaniard missed a couple of winners and gifted away the first breakthrough of the
match to his opponent. The 232nd ranked professional accepted the donation and coupled it up with a thumping serve hold to sneak away with the first set lead.
The second set started miserably for Olmedo. He couldn’t hold his serve in the opening game and went down to a trail of 0-2 upfront. The pressure from his counterpart further sunk him down but he did hang on and limited the trail
to two games until the end of the sixth game. Finally, the resistance was broken for the second time and Navarro took hold of the proceedings with a comfortable lead of 5-2.
First clash between the two fellow countrymen ended in favour of the 30-year-old Navarro who marched on into the first round of the tournament played on the red clay courts of Portugal. It will be interesting to see if he can continue
this cameo for a little longer to stun few of his upcoming competitors.
The draw is not updated yet so he still awaits the announcement of his next rival in the main round of the contest. However, he will have to lift his game a bit more and avoid those double-faults to make an impact.
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