Martin Alund dodges Marcelo Demoliner in the first round – Sao Leopoldo Challenger 2011
Brazilian, Marcelo Demoliner locked horns with the Argentine, Martin Alund, in the first round of the Sao Leopoldo Challenger tournament, hosted in Brazil, on Monday October 31st. The match lasted for two hours and eight
minutes with a final score of 7-6(5), 7-5 in favour of the Argentine qualifier. Sizeable crowd had gathered to witness this encounter.
Brazilian was in dismal form having lost majority of his matches in recent past whilst his opponent was relatively in better run of form. He had an advantage of playing in front of his home crowd and familiar conditions but was
ranked inferior from his competitor. It was expected to be a close battle and it exactly turned out to be one of the most enthralling battles of the first round.
Alund started the proceeding in magnificent style, breaking his opponent’s serve in the first game and taking 2-0 lead upfront. Both players held on to their serves till the score was pushed to 3-2; it was the home boy breaking
his opponent’s serve and bring the score on level terms.
Spectators were delighted with this turnaround and were chanting their local boy on his each successful point. Both players were keen to hold on to their serves and pushed the score 6-6. In the meantime both players had struck
single ace.
The tie-breaker was enforced and crowd were cheering for their home boy and placed a lot of pressure on the visitor who looked a bit uncomfortable with the atmosphere. Alund held his nerves in those tense conditions and waited
for an unforced error from his opponent that came in the form of a double-fault.
Pin drop silence was experienced when Brazilian committed double-fault and helped the Argentine to steal past him with a first set win. Both contenders had won 41 points each in the first set but that critical point in the end
helped the visitor to take a lead of one set and put pressure on the home boy.
25-year-old, Alund, had a good history against this opponent and had a head-to-head lead of 2-0. He was all set to hammer in third time in succession and improve his impressive record against Demoliner.
The second set was very nicely poised at the start and both players were capitalizing on their serves and winning their respective games, restricting their opponent’s to break. The massive breakthrough for the visitor came in the
eighth game when his opponent committed another double-fault and handed over the game to him; score was 5-3 at that stage in favour of Alund.
Alund’s breakthrough was short lived as the visitor’s next game serve was broken by his opponent who further pushed the score to 5-5. Argentine held his serve in the eleventh game and broke once again in the twelfth game of the
set to finish it off in outstanding fashion.
An epic encounter came to an end but not before it swung several times in either player’s favour. Finally it was Alund who had the final glory. He now moves on ahead to play Serbian Nikola Ciric in the second round.
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