Pablo Andujar bows out to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in his opening match – Mercedes Cup 2012
In an all-Spanish affair, fourth seeded Pablo Andujar was crashed out by his compatriot, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, in gruelling three sets at the Mercedes Cup 2012 on Wednesday. Andujar endured a 1-6, 6-4, 1-6 loss at the hands of his fellow citizen in the
second round at this outdoor clay court tournament held in Germany.
The Valencia resident, Andujar, displayed drastic performance at the Tennis Club Weissenhof. Despite pulling out the equaliser with three breaks of serve, he lost his opening match in two hours and seven minutes and exited from the tournament with disappointment.
Garcia-Lopez on the other hand improved to a 3-0 lifetime in the FedEx ATP Head 2 head series against his compatriot and booked a spot in the quarter-finals.
The 29-year-old made a powerful start at this ATP World Tour 250 series event and quickly bagged the opener with a breadstick. He plucked the last five games in a row with two breaks of serve to inch towards the glory.
Andujar continued his dismal performance in the follow-up set and suffered the first blow in the opening game. After he was trailing at 1-3, the seed reeled off the following five games successively and leaped to a 5-3 lead. Apart from losing his edge in
the very next game, he cashed in another break chance and sealed the equaliser with a 6-4 win.
Ranked 35th in the South African Airways ATP World Tour Rankings, Andujar lost his path again in the final set. He lost the opening four games in a row before coming on the score sheet. The higher ranked Spaniard lost the last two games again
and eventually crashed out from the tournament.
Garcia-Lopez will square off against the local wildcard entrant, David Brown, who upset the French contender, Benoit Paire, in three sets to secure this place.
The top seeded Serb, Janko Tipsarevic, also earned the glory later that day. He formulated a 6-4, 6-2 success against Belgium’s Steve Darcis in 79 minutes. The Serbian number two was broken once but capitalised on four out of six break chances to progress
at this event.
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