Marin Cilic Ousts Simone Bolelli in the opening round – Monte Carlo Rolex Masters 2012
Italian qualifier, Simone Bolelli, couldn’t carry on with his winning momentum of the qualifying rounds and suffered a straight sets, defeat at the hands of the Croatian number one, Marin Cilic, on Tuesday. The unseeded Croat wrapped
up victory at 6-3, 6-4, to book a berth in the second round of the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters in style.
The contest was played on the clay courts of Monte Carlo, Monaco and the reigning world number 22, Cilic, exhibited his true class once again to register a win. He faced Bolelli last year at Munich, Germany and took him down in
a gruelling two-setter at, 7-5, 7-6(4). He had lesser difficulties this time round and cruised through both sets with the utmost ease to lead 3-1 in the all-time head-to-head series against the Italian.
The 23-year-old Croat competitor used his first serve as the primary weapon of destruction, delivering 69 per cent of it on target and firing nine thudding aces in the match. He dropped nine points on his first serve and bagged
33 out of 42 points en route to victory. He had five break points throughout the matchup and converted one in every set to take the better of his opponent. On the other hand, Bolelli kept frittering away his priceless opportunities and utterly failed to convert
any of the three break chances he had in the match.
Cilic took hold of the momentum early in the opener, breaking the Italian serve in second game and holding his own to lead 3-0 straight away. Bolelli failed to recover from the early damage done by the Croat competitor and kept
crawling in the set with a one-game deficit. A regular game was witnessed which ended the opening set at 6-3 in Cilic’s favour.
Both players held their serves in the opening six games of the following set and Bolelli was looking to get settled in the match. A sudden momentum swing was seen in the seventh game when Cilic broke his opponent for the second
time in the match to lead 4-3. He then went on with his winning impetus and two successive serve holds concluded the contest for him at 6-4.
Cilic has a much tougher challenge ahead in the second round, as he will take on the reigning world number seven, Tomas Berdych of Czech republic. Being the sixth seed in the tournament draw, the Czech tennis ace received a bye
to have a direct access to the second round of the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters.
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