Juan Martin Del Potro reigns supreme; ousts James Blake in the 2nd Round – Farmers Classic 2011
Former world No. 4, American veteran James Blake’s hopes at making a comeback before the US Open were dashed late Wednesday by second seed Juan Martin Del Potro. Del Potro stood firm in the closely contested two set match to emerge
as the victor in a tiring one hour and forty three minutes at the Straus Stadium, on campus at the University College Los Angeles (UCLA). The Argentinean Del Potro is now securely berthed in a slot at the quarter finals of the Farmers Classic, an Olympus US
Open Series event.
Blake, currently ranked at No. 90, had looked resilient and determined to make a comeback in his opening round match against German Michael Berrer. Blake came in with a dismal win-loss standing of 8-8 and hasn’t played many tournaments
this season. He had therefore been hoping vainly to kick start his career’s revival using the Farmers Classic as an opportune spring board.
The Argentinean, who frequently touted as a threat to the trio of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer, has recovered from a prolonged bout of injuries since 2010. Del Potro had to cut short his last year’s season and fell to the lowly
No. 485 on the ranking table, but quickly bounced back to No. 19 early on this season by grabbing two titles in Estoril and Delray Beach. The 2009 US Open winner looks keen to improve further before participating in this year’s edition of the prestigious tournament.
The two players’ held an evenly matched head to head ranking of 1-1 prior to the match. They last met at the Australian Open in 2010, a match in which Del Potro had emerged as the winner.
Blake played the opening game of the fiercely fought first set. Both the players remained neck to neck against each other, with Blake serving at 57% and Del Potro playing it out on 58%. They both won 16 first serve points each
and Del Potro managed to take vestigial lead by registering a serve break in the 5thgame. Del Potro closed the set 6-4.
The second set proved to be even more competitive, with both the players straining to get a firm footing in the match. Both the players registered one serve break each early in the set and again served almost equally at a little
over 50%. Del Potro managed to grab 3 aces, one more than his opponent. The set eventually had to be decided by a tie break, in which Del Potro left the struggling American trailing by limiting Blake to just 3 points against his 7.
The second seed Del Potro is set to face Latvian Ernests Gulbis in their third round match. Gulbis had previously in the day overtaken American qualifier Daniel Kosakowski.
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