Nicolas Almagro stuns Janko Tipsarevic to reach the quarters – French Open 2012
World number 13, Nicolas Almagro, registered an upset against the eighth ranked Serb, Janko Tipsarevic, in the fourth round of the Roland Garros French Open on Monday. He thrashed the superior seeded player in straight sets 6-4,
6-4, 6-4 to book a spot in the last eight of the tournament.
Ironically, both these players had never faced each other before. So, there should have been no nerves at the start but Tipsarevic took off poorly and couldn’t regain the momentum throughout the match; missing a lot of sitters
and getting disturbed by the hasty wind blowing accross the court.
The Serb was rocked bottom right from the start. He was forced to dig deep in order to hold serve. For a slight moment, he bounced back to register the first breakthrough in the second game but that was the only positive point
in the match. He squandered the lead in the fifth game and was pushed down hard in the ninth to trail 4-5. Almagro held his serve to love in the final game and won the opening set with little resistance.
The second set witnessed a tight battle at the start. Both players posted serve holds for the first six games but once again the lightning struck on Tipsarevic as he failed to smash the easiest of volleys and dropped the critical
breakpoint. The Spaniard kept the lead intact until the end and improved his set lead to 2-0.
The third set started off with a swap of breakpoints but the 26-year-old Spaniard took hold of the proceedings in the fifth game courtesy to a breakthrough and kept on hammering the Serb on her serves. Not a single breakpoint was
constructed by the 27-year-old Tipsarevic who looked to have fallen in the trap of the mixed play from the Spaniard.
Next up for the Spanish star is the defending champion, Rafael Nadal, who ousted the 13th seed Argentine, Juan Monaco, in the fourth round clash. King of clay is in empathic form and it will take a lot of toll on Almagro’s
body to beat the superhuman on his favourite surface. There might be a meagre chance of an upset but it is highly unlikely.
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