Rajeev Ram outlasts Mikhail Elgin in 2nd qualifying round – Malaysian Open 2011
With the 2nd round of the Malaysian Open qualifiers 2011 on its way, Rajeev Ram bombarded his Russian rival, Mikhail Elgin, and went on qualifying of the final qualifier on Sunday, 25th September. Beating
him 6-1, 4-6, 6-3, the American toiled for an hour and 57 minutes before he walked off the hard indoor court at Putra Stadium, Bukit Jalil.
Firing up with the starter, Elgin won the service toss and served first. Breaking early, the American went off taking the lead. Serving out the second game, Ram switched the serve and stood to return, 2-0. Rolling down his side
of the scoreboard, the Russian counterpart cut the lead to 1-2.
Ram ignited serving out game 4 and went on bombing the Russian world No.453 with a break-serve-break tactic and extended his lead to 6-1 and finished off with the first set winning. With 12 service points and 16 returners, Ram
totalled 28 points and moved on to serve out the second set.
Breaking early, Elgin pressurized the Indian-American, and followed with serving out game 2 and taking the lead in the set, 2-0. Ram, ranked world No. 207 won his first game of the set to cut the lead down to 1-2. However, could
not break any sooner and kept on lagging behind.
The two scorched up the scoreboard winning on respective serves next. none of them could break each other, however, Elgin retained his lead of 2 games and eventually took out the second set winning 6-4 to level up the match scores
1-1.
With one more set to go, the decider, Ram once again took out the advantage serve, game 1, and took the lead, 1-0. Following his counterpart, the Russian went on levelling the scores the next instant. Hammering each other with
respective game wins, the two reach up 3-3 before Ram made a comeback.
Serving out game 7, Ram broke the world N0.453 and served out the next game winning the decider set 6-3 and the match 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 to walk into the final round of the Malaysian Open qualifiers 2011.
Statically, the American had a better percentage of 1st serve wins. The four breakpoints added to Ram’s victory along with four aces. Surprisingly, the Russian had more number of aces but that did not matter when he
could not return well. Nevertheless, the world No.207 ran away totalling 93 points at the end against 72 of his rival.
Ram will now play his final qualifier match against Aussie, Marinko Matosevic, for a seat in the main draw of the ATP tour 250 event.
Tags: