Marcel Felder battles past Bruno Sant’anna into second round – Sao Leopoldo Challenger 2011
18-year-old Brazilian, Bruno Sant’anna, went head-to-head with the Uruguayan, Marcel Felder, in the first round of the Sao Leopoldo Challenger tournament, hosted in Brazil, on Monday October 31st. World No.278, Felder,
clinched the victory in straight sets 7-6(3), 6-3 in just over an hour and forty-one minutes.
It was the first encounter between the two contestants and Uruguayan was producing better results compared to his competitor in recent times and was the hot favourite to win the match. Teenager had a slight advantage of home crowd
and familiar conditions but superior ranking and better form was clearly pointing in favour of the visitor.
The match started off slowly and both players held on to their serves and pushed the score to 4-3 in favour Felder. Two breaks were exchanged in the next two sets to push the score to 5-4.
Brazilian held on to his serve and levelled the score at 5-5 and broke in the next game to take the lead which was levelled with break from his opponent in the next game to push the score to 6-6.
A major blunder in the tie-breaker by the teenager left him trailing one set down; he double-faulted twice and gave initial lead to his competitor who capitalized on it; he bagged 41 points out of 77 total played and with a tiny
difference of just five points pocketed the first set.
Visitor started the second set proceedings with an ace and continued his domination throughout the set; never gave his opponent a minute opportunity to bounce back. He broke his opponent’s serve twice and provided no opportunity
to him break and make a comeback.
The lead in the fifth game with a break, proved a bit too much to recover for the Brazilian who fell short of his requirements and surrendered in the midst of the second set. He only managed to win three games whilst his opponent
won six on the other hand.
Although, Felder won the second set with a difference of just six points but again it was matter of securing those crucial game winners that helped his cause at the end. He won 36 points in the second set and marched into the second
round of the tournament.
Marcel Felder squares-off against the winner of the match between the fifth seed Ricardo Mello and Fernando Romboli.
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