Mardy Fish downs Gilles Muller in the opening round – Australian Open 2012
Eight seed Mardy Fish stomped over the Luxembourgian challenger, Gilles Muller, in straight sets at the Australian Open 2012 on Monday. He clobbered a 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 victory over the left-handed star to advance into the second round of this first Grand Slam event of the season.
The American number one showed his class in the opening game and drew the first blood to take the initial lead. Later, Fish maintained consistency in his game and held his entire serves, eventually bagging the opener by winning six games to four.
Fish carried his winning ways in the second set and continued plucking in all the serves after dusting away both breakpoints he came across. The higher ranked American capitalised on one out of four break chances in the seventh game to seal the set by winning six games to four.
After Muller held his serve in the first game of the third set, the world number eight, Fish, went berserk and reeled off next five games in a row before the Luxembourgian could hold on again. He held his serve again in the last game and pocketed the victory with a 6-2 score line.
The American hammered 30 winners and regardless of producing a lower first serve share, he jolted down spectacular 41 out of 45 points on it. Fish also committed 12 unforced errors as compared to the Luxembourgian 39, which made the difference.
The high spirited American maintained his winning record against the Luxembourgian, ranked 54th in the South African Airways ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Tour Rankings, after this 123 minutes long marathon. He has now extended lead in the head-to-head series by 2-0 against Muller.
Next up for the seeded American is the winner of the match between Colombia’s Alejandro Falla and Italian star, Fabio Fognini.
Spain’s Pere Riba will accompany Fish in the second round of the Major tennis tournament taking place on the hard courts of Melbourne, Australia. The Spaniard rallied past his compatriot, Albert Montanes, with a 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(5) score line to advance in this tournament. He will face the winner of the match between 25th seed Juan Monaco and German Philipp Kohlschreiber.
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