Leonardo Mayer stuns Stephane Robert in 2nd round – Tennislife Cup 2011 CH
Argentinean Leonardo Mayer surprised seventh seeded French Stephane Robert with a straight set victory at the Tennislife Cup 2011, an ATP Challenger Tour event held on the red clays in Napoli, Italy. He registered a 6-4, 6-3 success
over the 31-year-old Robert to advance into the quarter-finals on Thursday.
World number 117, Mayer required only seventy-five minutes upsetting the Frenchman, ranked eight places above him in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, on their second meeting. After earning this achievement, he
took one step closer to the €42,500 prize money.
24-year-old Argentinean confidently entered the Greenpark Posillipo’s clay court and held his opening serve to level the scores at 1-1. He then took the first blood in the proceeding game to take lead for the first time in the
match. Despite levelling in the very next game, he broke Frenchman’s serve again in the fifth game and then kept remaining serves to clinch the opener with a 6-4 score line.
He clobbered a slightly lower first serve share of 73 percent as compared to Robert’s 76 percent but registered a plausible 64 percent win on it. Furthermore, the Argentinean saved one out of two breakpoints came across and cashed
on both breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to clinch easily.
The Corrientes native, Mayer improved his winning ways in the final set as he faced zero breakpoint to keep entire serves comfortably. He broke Robert’s serve in the opening and the last game to seal the set by winning six games
to three.
Mayer manifested a better first serve share of 58 percent as opposed to Frenchman’s 39 percent and mustered the set further by registering a spectacular 82 percent win on it.
The Argentinean will next face the winner of the match between fourth seeded local tennis star Filippo Volandri and Serbian qualifier Boris Pashanski. Mayer just needs to maintain his composure and play in a similar way to overpower
the seed, possible winner amongst the two. The Serb on the other hand reached this spot after surprising Dutch Thomas Schoorel.
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