Juan Martin Del Potro advances to semi-finals at Memphis ATP
The Argentinean wild card, Juan Martin Del Potro defeated the USA’s Michael Russell by easy straight sets of 6-4, 6-2 at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships on 19 February, 2011.
The world ranked number 298, Del Potro, had a 70 per cent winning record for the last ten matches. He lost to San Jose’s top seed Fernando Verdasco in the semi-finals of the San Jose ATP. He entered this tournament confidently and dumped the sixth seed,
USA’s John Isner and Croatia’s Ivan Dodig in the first two rounds without losing a set.
World number 107, Russell also had a 70 per cent winning record for his last ten matches. He lost to Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin in the second round of the San Jose ATP. In this tournament, he defeated the USA’s Tim Smyczek and fourth seeded German Dustin
Brown in the qualifiers. He managed to beat Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic and the Frenchman, Florent Serra in the first two rounds.
Both players have met each other four times and after winning this match, the Argentinean leads the head to head series by 3-1.
Both tennis stars displayed an awesome game of tennis, but the former world number four, Del Potro won the set with a single break of serve and by firing four ferocious aces. Both players produced an equal first serve percentage of 61 per cent, but Del Potro
had an impressive 82 per cent win on it.
The frustrated American got back in the match by winning the first game of the opening set, as he held his serve. Del Potro was fired up and began using his powerful ground-strokes to win the next five games including two break of serves. Russell tried to
hold the raging Argentinean back by succeeding in holding on to his serve and made the score line 2-5. But it was too late, as the Argentinean held his serve again and clinched the match by straight sets. Both players had a first serve percentage of 52 per
cent, but Del Potro had an astonishing 85 per cent win on it.
The Argentinean wild card Del Potro will be facing the American top seed Andy Roddick in the semi-finals of Regions Morgan Keegan Championships. If Del Potro can manage to play like he did against Russell, chances are good that he can overpower Roddick in
an exciting match.
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