Julien Benneteau sends Igor Kunitsyn packing in 2nd round – Winston-Salem Open 2011
Playing at the Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, USA, on Tuesday, 23rdAugust, Julien Benneteau, Frenchman, rallied it out against Russian world No.58, Igor Kunitsyn, in straight sets winning 6-3, 6-1. The two were
playing for their seat in the 3rd round of the Winston-Salem Open 2011.
Playing each other for the fifth time, the impact was supposed to be greater than what was seen. The two 29-year-olds have played mostly on hard court against each other with ample experience to draw from.
Out of the five times the two have played each other, Benneteau has been successful most of the time, 3 of 5. Kunitsyn however, has been at almost the same level though he falters at time. The same happened at the Wake Forest University
hard court yesterday when Benneteau sailed through the two sets and ended the game in less than 72 minutes.
Although the two have been up against each other many times, however, every time they face each other, one of them tends to fall out complete as if they had never played before. In their previous fixture Kunitsyn stormed the Frenchman
the same way Benneteau defeated him in the Winston Salem fixture yesterday.
Starting off with the first set of the match, the Russian served first winning game 1 and switching the serve. Levelling the scores in the next game, the Frenchman broke the Russian world No.58 in game 3 and led 2-1.
Extending his lead to 3-1 after game 4, the Russian struck back breaking the Frenchman to level the scores at 3-3; however, he was ceased immediately as tumbled down losing a breakpoint in the next game. Benneteau went marvellous
after he broke the Russian once again in game 9 to bag the set 6-3.
Moving on with the second set, Benneteau dominated from the start as we thrashed Kunitsyn in the first 3 consecutive games, with a breakpoint win, and took a 3-0 lead in the start. The Russian finally had a win; however, it was
too late. Benneteau stormed the next 3 games straight to bag the second set and the match winning 6-3, 6-1.
Beating the 29-year-old Russian, the unmatched world No.113 moved on to the next round of the Winston-Salem Open 2011 to play against another Russian, Igor Andreev, to battle it out for the quarter-final round seat.
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