Juan Martin Del Potro too good for Gabashvili
Former US Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina crushed Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia 6-3, 6-2 to win his first round match at the SAP Open 2011 being played at the indoor hard courts of San Jose, California. Del Potro outplayed his opponent in straight sets for a convincing victory.
The match lasted for merely 78 minutes with the Argentine dominating his rival in every segment of the game. 22-year-old Del Potro was remarkable with his serve and belted nine thudding aces during the match to the opposite court. His error count was also on the lower side. He defended his baseline very well and converted many winning strokes from the Russian.
The Argentine wrapped up the opener in just half an hour to push the Russian on the back foot. Del Potro not even faced a single break point in all of the nine games of the opening set. He hit many winning returns from the baseline in the 32-minute opening set.
Gabashvili was sluggish to start the contest and was struggling to get some sort of rhythm in his game. He couldn’t penetrate into the rock solid defence of the Argentine but kept trying to show some aggression. Del Potro kept on exerting more pressure on him and forcing him to commit errors. The Russian took some unnecessary risks to break the shackles but it only exacerbated his position in the match.
After cruising through the first set, Del Potro kept his momentum going and breaking the opponent’s serve early in the second set at 2-2. His brilliant serve created many problems for the Russian, who was crumbling under the pressure of defeat. The other crucial break came for the Argentine at 4-2. Del Potro extended his lead to 5-2 which left him serving for the match. It was an easier task for the dominant Argentine who easily served out to register his first round victory in the SAP Open.
Del Potro will be facing Lukas Lacko of Slovakia in his next encounter to book a place in the quarter-final of the event. Lacko toppled third-seeded American Sam Querrey 7-6 (8/6), 6-3, one of three first round upsets of seeded players in the ATP Tour SAP Open.
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