Nicolas Almagro owns Stanislas Wawrinka to move into the last 16 – Australian Open 2012
Spanish tennis ace, Nicolas Almagro, easily past the third round of the Australian Open tournament by winning the match against the Swiss participant, Stanislas Wawrinka, in straight sets 7-6, 6-2, 6-4. Sizeable crowd was present
at the Show Court 2 in Melbourne, Australia to witness this encounter. Almagro had to work a bit in the first set to earn the triumph; apart from that it was just the matter of time before the Swiss was exiled from the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the
Australian Open.
These two players are arch rivals ever since they went head-to-head for the first time in the Roland Garros French Open (juniors) championship way back in 2003. The Swiss has always been on top of Almagro, beating him down in all
contests before the Spanish number three registered his first triumph in the Heineken Open 2007 in Auckland.
Before this encounter, the 22nd ranked Swiss had defeated Almagro on three different events, French Open Juniors 2003, IPP Geneva Trophy 2004 and Pilot Pen Tennis 2006. Both these players went face-to-face twice in 2010
during the Davis Cup tie and Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, contested in Cincinnati; on both occasions the Swiss gobbled up the wins and built a mammoth head-to-head lead of 5-1 against the Spaniard.
It was obvious that Almagro had the advantage of being superior ranked and hot favourite to win the contest but the psychological pressure of multiple head-to-head loses was on him. He desperately needed to perform well and clinch
a victory in order to reduce the lead and more importantly become the member of the last 16 participants of the Australian Open.
Conventional start to the match witnessed both players hanging on to their serves. Both players exchanged breaks twice amongst each other and scores stayed levels to enter the tie breaker round. Almagro held his nerve and clinched
the tie-breaker to name the first set. Spaniard hit the fourth gear in the second set and broke serve twice to have an emphatic set triumph over his opponent. The Swiss contestant was under a lot of pressure with two set trail hanging at his back.
Almagro broke three times in the third set that was good enough to give him an emphatic and much needed win over the Swiss. He moves into the fourth round.
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