Nikola Mektic, Jaime Pulgar-Garcia clear final qualifying round – Open Castilla y Leon 2011 CH
Seeded third in the qualifying draws, Nikola Mektic of Croatia, went through tough times before winning the clash against the local wildcard entrant, Pedro Salas, in the final round qualifiers of Open Castilla y Leon on Sunday.
Being a part of ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Challenger Tour swing, the competition was staged on the hard courts of Segovia, Spain, with the local contestant crashing out of the competition in the qualifying rounds.
Mektic laboured for two hours and seventeen minutes of sweating play before he finally settled the scores in his favour at 2-6, 7-5, 6-3, to book a berth in the main draws of the tournament.
The Croatian had a sluggish start to the matchup and was soon found in a miserable condition in the game. He suffered two cracking serve breaks from his opponent to drop the opening set at 2-6, after holding serve only twice. Salas
kept his hold on the game in the following set as well and gave minimum opportunities to his opponent to make a comeback in the game.
Mektic squandered away six break opportunities in the second set and a timely break point conversion from Mektic prove sufficient for him to close out the set at 7-5. Once getting in to his swing, Mektic never looked back in the
final set and went on with his aggression to drive Salas out of the competition with ease.
The Croatian nailed three serve breaks, in reply to the Spaniard’s one break point, to conclude victory at 6-3, moving into the main rounds of Open Castilla y Leon. He will take on the Slovakian contestant, Lukas Lacko in the opening
round of the tournament later this week.
In another upset match that took place on Sunday afternoon, Jaime Pulgar-Garcia of Spain defeated the fourth seeded French, Albano Olivetti, after a nail biting contest. The Spaniard finished off the contest at 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(4),
taking two hours and thirty one minutes to reach the main draws of the Challenger Tour event.
The Frenchman was outstanding with his serve, firing 24 thudding aces in the matchup and reeling off 50 out of 60 first serve points in the matchup. He won the opening set in a tie breaker round but Pulgar-Garcia registered the
only serve break of the entire matchup in the second set to level the contest with one set a piece.
The final set also went to the wire but the Spaniard finally bagged the tie breaker round to conclude victory at 7-6(4) to book a date with his fellow compatriot, Gerard Granollers, in the opening round of Castilla y Leon.
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