Lindstedt/Tecau topple Cabal/Schwank in the second round – Internazionali BNL d’Italia 2012
Ranked at number five in the world, Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau defeated Colombian-Argentinean duo of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Eduardo Schwank in straight sets 6-4, 6-3 in the second round at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia
in Rome, Italy on Wednesday.
The Swede-Romanian tandem took an hour and 21 minutes to oust their opponents.
Lindstedt/Tecau and Cabal/Schwank did not lose their serve in the first four games of the opening set, taking the score to 2-2. The Swedish-Romanian combination hit a blow to their opponents in the fifth and consolidated on it
to move ahead 4-2. They capitalised on the only break of serve and closed it 6-4.
The Swedish-Romanian pair delivered one ace and committed the same number of double fault in the opener. They kept their first serve percentage at 53 and secured 12 of the 16 points on them. The fourth seeds saved the only break
point they faced and availed one of the five opportunities they created.
In the second set, both teams won their serve in the first six games to go neck to neck till 3-3. Lindstedt and Tecau grabbed three in a row after that, snatching breaks in the seventh and ninth to win 6-3.
The Swedish-Romanian duo banged in three aces and 82 percent of the first serves in the second set. They maintained a very good conversion rate throughout, as they captured 13 of the 18 first and three of the four second delivery
points. Lindstedt and Tecau also performed impressively on the replies to their opponent’s serves, sealing eight of the 18 first and seven of the 14 second return points.
Giving an interview to the reporters after the match, Lindstedt said, "It was a very tough match. They are a really good team, especially on clay. I thought I started pretty good, but I went down a bit and Horia picked it up.”
He added, "There is always a few things you have to work on. I'm never happy with the way I play, but we started with a new coach, Ashley Fisher, in Bucharest. We won the title there and got to the Madrid final last week. We are
winning a lot of matches, so we are happy with that, but we know we have to improve to win our first Grand Slam."
Lindstedt and Tecau are drawn to meet either Polish duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski or Austrian-German team of Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner in the last eight.
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