Roberto Bautista-Agut upsets Igor Sijsling in round two – Rome Challenger 2012
Spaniard tennis professional, Roberto Bautista-Agut, defeated the Dutch age fellow, Igor Sijsling, in straight sets, 7-6(6), 6-4, to register a second round upset in the Rome Challenger on Thursday.
Both players were facing each other for the fourth time in their professional careers and the inferior ranked Spaniard took full advantage of the opportunity to level the head-to-head scores at 2-2. Before this encounter, it was
the Dutch starlet who had devastated the Spaniard in the Quimper Challenger in February, earlier this year.
Both players started off well but Agut was the one who was pressurized all the way throughout the opening set. However, he did well to sneak serve holds at critical stages of the game and denied his opponent of the possible opening
in the form of a breakpoint. No breakpoint were converted by any player and the tie-break round was enforced to decide the opening battle.
After an intender battle, it was the 149th ranked Spaniard who outclassed the 120th ranked Dutch and gobbled up the opening set triumph. After losing such a gruelling battle, Sijsling looked down and out.
He was low on confidence and the motivation level was also minimal.
The Spaniard took advantage of this situation and broke serve early in the set to take a lead of 2-0. He pressurized his opponent all the way and kept the lead intact to stamp his authority. However, the Dutch competitor replied
back with a breakthrough in the seventh game that diminished the trail. He coupled that with a thumping serve hold to level the scores at 4-4.
The second set was also on course to enter the tie-breaker round but the Spaniard showed immense ability to fight back and reclaim the lead in the ninth game. The enthusiasm to win the battle led Agut to win the second breakpoint
of the set and pull down his counterpart, once again. Sijsling had to break serve in the 10th game to keep the match alive but he failed to do so that confirmed the upset of the day. It will be interesting to see how Agut performs in the remaining
stages of the tournament.
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