Pierre-Ludovic Duclos edges past Sergey Betov into final qualies – Tiburon Challenger 2011
Canadian, Pierre-Ludovic Duclos faced severe resistance from Sergey Betov of Belarus in the second qualifying round of Tiburon Challenger on October 8th in California, USA. Betov showed intense desire to resist Duclos from moving into the second round but had to give up after a fierce battle of two hours and three minutes. Duclos managed to move into the final qualifying round with a score of 7-6(5), 6-4.
Sizeable crowd gathered in the arena to watch an exciting battle between the two players. 25-year-old, Duclos was given a very tough time at the pitch by his opponent. Although the match seemed one-sided on paper it followed a completely different course. 23-year-old, Betov played the match with full enthusiasm and intention to upset the Canadian.
Belarus International was in hunt for his first ever big win in the tournaments and this was his fourth encounter in a major tournament. Canadian was looking to double his tally and keep and 100% win record for her career.
25-year-old started the first set in a typical fashion, hammering his opponent all over the place and thumping him with aces. He scored four aces in the first set compared to just one of his opponent. It was pretty one sided contest until Betov finally managed to break his opponent’s serve and creep himself back into the match by winning game after game and levelling the score to 6 games apiece.
It was a close contest with the final two points being the set deciders and Betov was an inch close to hint an upset. Both players broke their opponents serve once but Canadian secured the most important last two points after a tie-breaker that saw all the efforts of Betov go in vain.
Second set was relatively easier for Canadian as his opponent had tired from the lengthy first set and was probably disheartened with the way things have gone for him. Belarusian international still managed to stand in the way of Duclos and victory for almost an hour.
He went on to win the four games in the second set. Duclos won the second set by the difference of just two points again and sealed the victory that left the Belarusian international with an early exit in the tournament.
Duclos broke his opponent’s serve twice and aced four times to overpower the 23-year-old. Both players’ stats were equally poised in all aspects except Canadian had a massive first serve point win rate which undermined the classic counter of his opponent.
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