Pablo Cuevas cruises to quarters at US Men’s Clay Court Championship
7th seeded Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas destroyed American wildcard entrant James Blake with a breadstick on Thursday. He registered a 7-5, 6-1 win over the 31-year-old American to advance to the quarter-finals
at 2011 US Men’s Clay Court Championship in Houston.
World number 66 Cuevas outclassed world number 163 Blake on his first ever meeting at River Oaks Country Club. He broke the American’s serve three times to clinch the match in just under 70 minutes.
Both players displayed awe-inspiring skills in the opening match and played with their top form. They produced almost a similar first serve share and held their entire serves spectacularly until the scores were levelled at
5-5.
After this, 25-year-old Cuevas held his serve to take the lead and finally converted his third breakpoint opportunity to his advantage in the twelfth game to clinch the set with a 7-5 win.
The Uruguayan improved his winning ways in the second set as he smacked six ferocious aces and earned an exceptional 93 percent win on his higher first serve share. He committed zero double faults and broke Blake’s serve
twice to win the set with a convincing 6-1 score line.
He clearly deserved this victory as he committed less doubles faults, had a much better first serve share of 71 percent as compared to Blake’s 57 percent and registered an amazing 89 percent win on it in the whole match.
Cuevas also saved the only two breakpoints he conceded in the first set.
Blake, who was a finalist here in 2008, was ousted from the tournament by the in-form youngster after displaying dismal performance in the final set. The fading former top five star who was on the other side of net, showed
his spark in the opening set but lost his only serve in the last game to lose it. Instead of fighting back, he stumbled in the second set as he double faulted twice, found no break point and saved only three out of five breakpoints.
For Cuevas, it was just another significant win as he ended Andy Rodick’s reign last week in the Sony Ericson Open. He will next face third seeded Spanish Guillermo Garcia Lopez who reached this spot after trashing the Indian
Somdev Devvarman with a breadstick in one hour and 28 minutes.
Ranked 27th in the South African Airways ATP World Rankings, Garcia Lopez though committed five double faults and had a poor first serve share of 38 percent as opposed to Devvarman's 50 percent, he
earned an astonishing 68 percent win on it. The 27-year-old also failed to save the only two breakpoints he conceded but he converted five out of nine breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to clinch the match with a 6-4, 6-1 score line.
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