Leonardo Mayer beats Rui Machado to move into the last four – AON Open 2011 CH
Upsetting the Genova challenger, Leonardo Mayer, the Argentine, mustered a straight set win again his quarter-final counterpart, Rui Machado in an hour and 46 minutes to conclude with the red clay match 6-3, 7-6(1) to play Horacio
Zeballos in the semis.
Playing for the third time against the Portuguese, Mayer, 24, smashed the clay court competitor vigorously to increase his head-to-head lead to 3-0. Formerly ranked at world No.51, the right hander had a good prior 10 match run,
winning 8 of them and all on clay.
On the other hand, the higher ranked Portuguese was stunned as the Argentine disapproved the 27-year-old of his ranking knocking him down effortlessly. Machado suffered his 2nd loss in this season as previously he bowed
down to the 24-year-old in the semis of Trani Challenger earlier in the season. Dropping out of the final Grand Slam of the year, the US Open 2011, Machado entered the clay court at Genova to try his luck once again.
Comparatively, the Mayer had a better last 10 match run and is also considered a master of clay in the mid class players. Machado, on the other hand, did pull off his ranking in the top 80, though is struggling to maintain it.
Firing off with the starter, Mayer opened up serving first, however, went down immediately. With an early break the Portuguese world No.79 seemed comfortable before he too fell short and lost a breakpoint. With scores now level,
Mayer banged two straight games, including a breakpoint win, to lead 3-1.
Breaking back in the following game, Machado served-and-volleyed to cut the lead to 3-2, yet could not level the scores and once again fell short to lose his 3rd breakpoint in set 1, lagging 2-4. Mayer then eased two more serves
to win the first set 6-3 and led the match score 1-0.
Moving on with the second set, Machado opened up the serve and the scorecard, 1-0, followed by Mayer levelling the scores in no time. The two exchanged breakpoint, and once again stood level at 2-2. Winning on their respective
serve, the two rivals eventually led to a decider tiebreak.
Mayer, opening up the tiebreaker, outran the Portuguese with mere difficulty bagging the final game, 7-1 and the set 7-6(1) wining the match in straight sets. The Argentine had a strong statistical ending. Blazing 7 aces against
none of Machado’s and totalling 75 points against 64 to sit closer to the title match.
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