Lopez/Verdasco submit to Gimeno-Traver/Riba in the first round clash – Valencia Open 2011
In the all-Spanish affair held on Monday evening, the wildcard duo of Daniel Gimeno-Traver and Pere Riba outplayed the team of Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco in the opening round of the Valencia Open.
The contest was played on the indoor hard courts of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències in Valencia, Spain, with the two local teams putting up an enthralling display of high quality doubles tennis. Gimeno-Traver and Riba took one hour and seventeen minutes of play to drive out their fellow compatriots from the contest in three sets, 3-6, 6-4, 12-10.
Lopez and Verdasco were off to an excellent start in the first set but tend to lose their way in the middle parts of the contest to let their opponent back in business. The two sides pocketed one set apiece to enforce a super tie breaker round, which also went on neck-to-neck. The decider was stretched to a total of 22 points but Gimeno-Traver and Riba delivered the final blow in the last minutes of the contest to book a place in the quarter-finals of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour 500 event.
It was Gimeno-Traver and Riba’s first World Tour-level victory as a team and a much needed one as well. They took a sloppy start in the opener but gradually regrouped in the second set to make their way back and then went on to clinch the final set as well to conclude victory.
The contest remained evenly posed till the last minute, with a couple of major momentum swings in between. Lopez and Verdasco clinched 34 first serve points in the game, with their Spanish opponents following at 28 to come out as the winner. Both duos struck two serve breaks each in the competition but it appeared just a matter of time that Gimeno-Traver and Riba seized a critical mini-break in the last moments of the match to drive their opponents out of the competition.
Lopez and Verdasco took the first set with a break point in the fourth game and broke Gimeno-Traver and Riba again the opening game of the following set. The winning duo nailed two successive break point conversions in the eighth and 10th game to close out the second set in their favour and then went out to pocket the decider as well to claim victory.
Gimeno-Traver and Riba will either take on the second seeded Pole duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski or the unseeded team of Eric Butorac of the United States and Jean-Julien Rojer of Curacao in the quarter-finals of the Valencia Open.
Tags: