James McGee labours past Liang-Chi Huang in the opening battle – Dunlop World Challenge 2012 CH
Irish qualifier, James McGee, had to go through some real tough channels before he could eventually come out as the winner in the opening round clash of Dunlop World Challenge on Monday. He fought through two tie-break rounds to
eventually dump the 20-year-old Taiwanese contender, Liang-Chi Huang in one hour and 38 minutes of play. The final score line settled at 7-6(5), 7-6(4) in favour of the Irish qualifier in the end.
25-year-old McGee had to face some real resistance from his counterpart throughout the contest but he kept his focus in the match, eventually getting the better of Huang in the final moments. The Taiwanese contender kept moving
neck-to-neck with the Irish player and dragged him to his limits in both sets. He couldn’t finish off the contest in his favour and tend to crumble in the intense pressure situations.
The opening set took off with aggressive game play from both sides and no break point was witnessed. McGee and Huang held their respective serves all the way and dragged the opener into the tie-break round. The Taiwanese remained
competitive in the initial part of the decider and score line was levelled at 5-5 once again. However, a crucial mini-break from the Irish put him into the driving seat and he comprehensively closed out the opening set at 7-6(5).
Huang came out firing at McGee in the following set and an early break of serve put him into a 3-0 lead right away. Momentum shifted towards the Irish qualifier and he broke back in the ninth game, ultimately dead-locking the score
line to 6-6. McGee raced through the tie-breaker round this time round and nailed two mini-break points to seal his victory at 7-6(4).
Although McGee had a below serve precision of 48 per cent, he banged in 15 aces and secured 33 out of 39 first serve points en route to victory. His opponent had a better serve accuracy of 72 per cent and secured 42 out of 53 points
on it.
McGee will face the winner of the opening round match between the fourth seed Yeu-Tzuoo Wang and Henri Laaksonen in the round of 16.
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