Nicolas Almagro bags an effortless win over Albert Montanes – Western & Southern Open 2011
Captivating a furious combination of world’s top stars in tennis playing at the historic hard court at the Lindner Family Tennis Classic cooks up the famous Western & Southern Financial Open in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Started off
on Saturday, 13th August, the final matches of the 1st round of the Masters 1000 event were played on Tuesday, 16th August.
Nicolas Almagro played his first rounder against rival and compatriot, Albert Montanes. The two Spaniards battled it out on the hard court, playing head-to-head for the 7th time in history. Although Almagro, aged 25,
is ranked at the top, world No.11, has been struggling to put forward a greater tie against his country fellow.
The two have played 5 of their 7 matches on clay and the remaining on hard courts. Montanes has been exceptional on clay but still had a lot to learn as he lost several matches on clay previously. Facing a kick out of the Rogers
Cup 2011 at the start, the Spaniard took his journey to the north and made his stop at the Cincinnati Open.
However, the world No.45 still had to figure out which court to choose and which not. In order to improve his ranking the Spaniard still needs to play more on clay. Every time the 30-year-old aims at the hard court he fall’s a
hard knock resulting a change in his ranking.
Nevertheless, the two played a superb match resulting in the world No.11 taking a close win 7-6(5), 6-4.
Almagro opened up the serve for the first game of the match and turned on the scoring, 1-0. The fellow Spaniard followed winning games on respective serve. The set score tied at 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, and 5-5. The set finally went on into
a tiebreak with the 25-year-old to serve first.
Almagro served to start the tiebreak and finished off first to a 7-5 win in the game and winning the set 7-6(5).
Continuing with set 2, the 30-year-old held on to give a stronger battle, however, fell down hard to attain the same result as of the first set. Serving first to open the set, Montanes took over game 1 and stood next to play Almagro
in game 2. Levelling the score in the next game Almagro broke the 30-year-old to lead the set 2-1.
Extending his lead to 3-1, the Spaniard maintained his 2 games lead till the end and secured an easy 6-4 win in set 2. Ending up the fixture in 1 hour and 16 minutes, the Spaniard secured 49 service points and 22 returners totalling
71 points to his win in the 1st round.
Almagro chairs the 2nd round to play against the Croatian Ivo Karlovic for the 3rdround seat. Karlovic made it to the 2nd round upsetting German, Florian Mayer in straight sets.
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