Juan Monaco battles past Tommy Haas in the first round clash – Cincinnati Open 2011
Former world number two, Tommy Haas of Germany crashed out of the opening round of Western and Southern Financial Group Masters, being defeated by the 39th ranked Argentine competitor, Juan Monaco on Monday afternoon.
The competition took place on the outdoor hard courts at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, near Cincinnati, United States, with the Argentine winning in three sets, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3, to make it to the second round of the
ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Masters Series event. Haas hung in the game for two hours and twelve minutes of play before succumbing in the final set of the matchup to let opponent away with victory.
The last encounter between these two men took place in 2007 at the Madrid Masters, when Monaco outplayed the German in straight sets 6-4, 7-5, in the round of 32. His Monday’s victory breaks him into the lead in the head-to-head
series against Haas by 2-1 and sends him into the second round of Cincinnati Masters.
The enthralling contest took a number of momentum swings before settling in the Argentine’s favour in the end. It was 19th victory for Monaco in the running ATP season, with 18 defeats already to his name this year.
The unseeded Argentine serve d very well when needed in the game and had a strong baseline defence to keep his serve unbroken in the entire contest. Haas crafted just one break point in the game and squandered it away to remain at a disadvantage.
Monaco delivered 68 per cent of his serve on target and bagged 45 out of 65 first serve points in the matchup, while Haas excelled over him by collecting 51 out of 67 points to finish on the losing side in the end. The German took
the opener, after a stiff contest between the two contestants drove the set in to a tie breaker round, with Haas closing out at 7-6(5) to get one up in the match.
Monaco made a very strong comeback immediately and nailed his first serve break of the day to bag the second set at 6-4, levelling the matchup at 1-1. The Argentine carried on his winning impetus in the final set as well and stung
two serve breaks to conclude victory at 6-3, getting a place in the second round of Cincinnati Masters. Monaco will take on the eighth seeded Czech competitor, Tomas Berdych, who got a bye to play in the second round of the tournament, for a place in the third
round.
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