Robin Haase steps over Pierre-Ludovic Duclos to sit in quarterfinal – Winston-Salem Open 2011
Ranked at world No.323, Pierre-Ludovic Duclos entered the 3rd round of Winston-Salem Open 2011 to play against the world No.42, Robin Haase at the Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, USA here on Wednesday, 24th August.
Walking on to the hard court at noon, the two had a round of applause by a handful of spectators at the Wake Forest tennis court. Previously the two had met in the Canada F2 where Haase took out the Canadian on his home ground.
Although Duclos had been playing mostly on fast hard court he still could not over pass a clay court player.
Duclos, Canadian, has been playing professionally since 2004, the 25-year-old has topped a ranking of world No.259 that is surely not so impressive. Anyhow, the Canadian did prove to be acceptable as he mumbled through the qualifiers
and made it to the 3rd round.
Haase, on the other hand, is currently enjoying his best rankings as the world No.42. Turning pro in 2005, the 24-year-old has made it up the ranking fast and with ease. The right-hander plays amazing on clay circuit, however,
proved equally good on the hard court-circuit when he played his 3rd round match against the lower ranked Canadian at Wake Forest University.
Moving on with the fixture, the Canadian served the starter and immediately lost a breakpoint. Winning on his serve, Haase extended his lead to 2-0 saving a crucial breakpoint and switching the serve. Finally, Duclos won his first
game to cut the lead, 2-1.
Maintaining a 2 games lead all the way till the end, Haase successfully managed to win set 1, 6-4. With a strong defence, Haase secured 26 service points and 16 returners totalling 42 points against 35 of the Canadian to bag his
1st set win.
Continuing with the second set, Haase once again broke the Canadian winning game 1 followed by the 2nd. However, the 25-year-old world No. 323 managed to level the scores as he won game 3 and broke back in 4.
The set was boiling off as the games went by with the two levelling up again at 3-3 and then breaking each other one time each, at 4-4. As the set scorched up, it seemed to go toward a tiebreaker, however, Haase pulled off winning
the second set as well as he broke the 25-year-old once again in game 11 and took off winning game 12 and into the quarter-final round.
In addition to 42 points in the first set, Haase grabbed another 39 in the second totalling 81 points to his straight set win over the 25-year-old.
Winning the 3rd rounder, Haase eased into the quarter-final round of Winston-Salem to play against the mighty Ukrainian and the 3rd seed in the ATP Tour 250 event, Alexandr Dolgopolov, to fight for the semis
seat.
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