Juan Martin Del Potro wipes of Richard Gasquet to retain the title – Estoril Open 2012
Argentine number one, Juan Martin Del Potro, successfully defended his crown at the Estoril Open on Sunday by defeating the second seed French star, Richard Gasquet, in straight sets 6-4, 6-2. It was a display of pure class and
domination by the 23-year-old Argentine who took an hour and 28 minutes to claim the title for the second successive year.
The top seed Argentine was satisfied with his performance and stated, “I felt I played well really well today. I felt it was my best match of the week, so I am very glad for that to get another title in Estoril.”
He further added, “I play really aggressive all the time and I felt really confident on my forehand. I grew in confidence every game. It is important for me. I played my best to beat Gasquet.”
Del Potro revealed that he believes, it is high time in his career and his form his sublime run of form is returning. He proclaimed, “I am getting closer and closer to my best form. I have worked really hard at home and now I have
another important tournament next week to improve further. If I play as well as I did today over the coming days, I will be happy."
Gasquet went down a break, early in the opening set. Technically, the first four points of the match decided the opening set. The Argentine wasn’t tested at all on his serve game. However, he had few more opportunities to break
serve but was deprived by the French tennis ace.
The opening set featured 69 points that were shared in the ratio of 38:31 in favour of the Argentine. Del Potro was impressive with his first and second serve conversion rate that imposed a lot of pressure on his rival.
Trailing one set down, the second seed French started the second set miserably; dropped the opening serve game and went down to a trail of 1-4 courtesy to another successful breakpoint for Del Potro. It was getting pretty ominous
for the French and the crowd was also supporting the defending champion.
With no more breakthroughs contested in the last half of the second set; Del Potro bagged the title and finally achieved his goal after going through a very tough time against the Top-4 players in the season.
He enters the Madrid Open with a classic record of 27-6 under his belt. He is fuming in with confidence and just needs a bit of luck against the big guns to bag a major title.
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