Nicolas Almagro struggles past Michael Ryderstedt into the semi-finals – SkiStar Swedish Open 2011
Nicolas Almagro won a closely contested quarter final match on Friday at the ongoing 2011 SkiStar Swedish Open against Swedish hopeful and crowd favourite Michael Ryderstedt. The match which continued for well over an hour remained
a close call till it’s very end and the underdog Ryderstedt went down fighting. Ryderstedt’s performance during the tournament means that we can expect great performances from him in the future. The match ended 6-4, 7-6(4) in Almagro’s account who now moves
on to the semis.
Currently ranked at No. 14 the fourth seed Almagro has had a successful year so far. He’s been garnering points by playing true to his form in all the major ATP events. He recently won the title at Nice and managed to reach the
second last round of Barcelona before bowing out to second seed David Ferrer. Ryderstedt, a wild card entrant into the tournament was the only Swede apart from Robin Soderling who reached the top eight in the tournament. Sweden had pinned high hopes on the
player.
Ryderstedt played the first set’s opening game and the score steadily built up to a 4-4 tie. During this time both Ryderstedt and Almagro registered one serve of break each. However Almagro’s serve break on the 9th game
enabled him to overpower his opponent and go on to win the set 6-4. Despite very low first serve accuracy (32%), Almagro bagged 7 of his 8 serve points, in comparison Ryderstedt accumulated almost 72% of his first serve points and had a first serve accuracy
of 60%. Almagro scored home 6 devastating aces which eventually left Ryderstedt trailing.
The pitched battle continued on and the second set was even more fiercely fought than the first. Ryderstedt again played the opening serve and much to Almagro’s surprise registered two devastatingly effective serve breaks in games
1 and 3 of the second set and took the score to 3-0. Almagro then fought back by registering his first serve break of the set on game 4 and then one more when the scores levelled at 5-5. The game prolonged long enough to go into a tiebreak, which ended in
Almagro’s favour who won 7 points against Ryderstedt’s 4.
Nicolas Almagro’s next match, the semi final against second seed David Ferrer is scheduled for Saturday. David Ferrer managed an easy two straight set win against Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer to proceed into the top four.
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