Marin Cilic Wins 2010 Open de Moselle Opener as Xavier
Malisse defeats 2005 winner Ivan
The top seeded tennis player, Marin Cilic bundled out Slovakia’s Lukas Lacko in his second round clash at the 2010 Open de Moselle with a total of two sets on Thursday. The final match score was 7-5, 7-6(3).
The 21-year-old Croatian improved to an 8-1 record on the indoor hard courts this year as he managed to prevent all three break points faced on serve while blasted a total of twelve aces to seal the win in a time period of one hour and forty six minutes.
It was his first appearance since losing to Kei Nishikori at the 2010 U.S. Open in New York. That was the third lengthiest clash in the history of the U.S Open which stretched to four hours and fifty minutes.
"I am extremely happy with the way I fought today,” said Cilic. Lukas had some opportunities during the match to bounce back and recover but he didn’t make well use of them. During the second set of the match, Cilic missed four to five break point chances.
Still, Lukas couldn’t get hold of the match.
Marin is currently ranked number fourteen in the world by the Association of tennis professionals and he is hoping to reach the final of the Open de Moselle at Metz. He started the year in a stunning fashion by capturing trophies at Zagreb and Chennai while
also making his way into the semi final round of the Australian Open, where he was at last defeated by Andy Murray.
Cilic as a result of this victory will next meet Philipp Kohlschreiber, to whom he lost three previous clashes. Marin, while commenting on his next match, said that it would surely be hard against Philipp.
In some other action, Xavier Malisse triumphed in the battle of ATP World Tour veterans, defeating the 2005 winner and his third seeded foe, Ivan Ljubicic with a total of two sets on Thursday. The final match score was 7-5, 6-2. The clash concluded in eighty
minutes. It was Xavier’s first victory against Ljubicic in eight long years. Ljubicic blasted a total of twelve aces, however, dropped to a 17-14 match record of the year after Xavier broke his serve on three occasions.
The world number 55, Xavier, has so far advanced into a ATP World Tour semi this season at the UNICEF Open as well as the Legg Mason Tennis Classic. He will next take on the eighth seeded French player, Gilles Simon in the final eight.
Gilles blasted a total of fifteen aces past Ignor Sijsling who smashed thirteen aces for a two setter win on Thursday. The final match score was 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-3. The clash concluded in one hour and fifty three minutes at Metz.
The world number forty one has reached to a total of two quarters at the AEGON International and the Legg Mason Tennis Classic tournament this season. "I started off quite well with a break at the beginning of the second set, however, within no time things
got tricky and I found myself losing the set and having to battle to triumph in the match in the third," said Gilles.
Jarkko Nieminen of Finland prevented a total of six out of his seven break points to beat Kristof Vliegen from Belgium in a total of two sets. The final match score was 6-4, 6-1. The clash stretched to sixty eight minutes. Meanwhile, German tennis ace, Mischa
Zverev took the same amount of time to register a 6-4, 6-2 victory over the Frenchman, Nicolas Mahut.
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