Juan Monaco beats Andreas Seppi in first round – US Open 2011
The 1st stage of the US Open came to a halt Monday, 29th August, with the last match played between Argentine Juan Monaco and Andreas Seppi of Italy. The match was played on court 7 of the USTA Billie Jean King National
Tennis Center, New York, USA. The 3 setter match ended in almost 2 hours.
The Italian, Seppi, has been playing professional tennis since 2002 and is currently ranked in the top 60’s. The 27 year-old has his career best ranking at world No.27. Playing right handed, the Italian has a succession at hard
courts and clay combined with strong forehands. Playing his first match of the Grand Slam event, the former world no.27 lost and levelled up in head-to-head record with the Argentine.
Playing against the Italian for the fourth time, the mighty Argentine has always given a tough battle. Ranked at world No.36, Juan has been a pro tennis player since 2002. His career high ranking was in 2008 when he made it into
the top 14 players of the season. The Argentine has conquered the clay at many occasions, though this time around he had to master the hard surface.
Opening up the match with serving first, Seppi took out the initial game and opened up the scoreboard, 1-0. Breaking Monaco in the second, the Italian went on standing a stable position in the set when he mustered the next 4 as
well.
The 27-year-old led the scoreboard 5-1 and was looking to blister the Argentine in the next. Serving for the win, Seppi was blown away with what happened next. The Argentine world No.36 broke his challenger to cut the lead to 2-5
following with a win in the next game as well, 3-5. With his mind blowing performance, the former world No.14 repeated the format, breaking first and then winning the next, and went on levelling the scores from 1-5 down to 5-5.
The set went into a tiebreak where Monaco proved worthy of his ranking and bagged the set 7-6(1) and onto set 2.
Moving on with set 2, Monaco served first and rolled down the score card. Forming a solid defence against the Italian world No.51, the 27-year-old dominated the second set breaking the Italian twice, in game 4 and then in game
8, to take bag another win, 6-2, and stepped closer to victory.
The decider set was full of breakpoints wins and saves. Serving the opening game, Monaco initially lost the game, a breakpoint, however, levelled up the scores at 1-1 breaking back the Italian in game 2. Monaco then extended his
lead from 1-1 to 5-1 winning 4 back-to-back games including 2 breakpoints. Seppi did push back when he broke Monaco in game 7 but could not gain momentum and got broken down for the last time in the match winning, 6-2.
Following the succession in the 1st round, Juan Monaco will now face Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic in a 5 setter match to round 3.
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