Rohan Bopanna beats Daniel Brands to book main draw spot in BNP Paribas Open 2011 Men's Qualifiers
India's Rohan Bopanna defeated top-seeded qualifier Daniel Brands of Germany in thrilling two sets to seal his spot in the BNP Paribas Open main draw, being held at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens in Indian Wells, California. Bopanna needed an hour and 20
minutes to dispatch his favoured opponent, in a close encounter that saw no breaks of serve.
The Indian is currently ranked 629th in the world in singles and rarely participate in singles events. He is, however, a top-20 doubles player, and that quality paid off in his match against the world number 80. Since the two players had never met before,
there were only vague expectations going into the match, but generally, the German was slightly favoured to come out on top.
The first set started off with both players fighting immensely hard. Both of them served quite well. Bopanna landed in 67 percent of his first serves correctly and Brands matched him blow for blow, delivering 70 percent of his serves only once. The slight
difference here was more than made up for in their respective conversion percentages.
The Indian managed to convert 86 percent of his total first serves into points for himself and the German lagged behind a little, winning 81 percent of the points he served once on. The more experienced man from South Asia was also stronger on the return,
as might be expected from a doubles specialist. He won 24 percent of his total return points, and while that may not be much, his opponent managed to reciprocate with only 15 percent. Such great serving meant that neither player could create even a single
break point, and so no breaks of serve came about. The tiebreak saw Bopanna gain a mini-break early on, which he consolidated with some good serving to take the set 7-6(7-5).
The second set was more of the same. Here, Bopanna was definitely the worse server. He only managed to get in 56 percent of his first serves correctly. However excellent conversion skills meant that he took 75 percent of the points on his own serve. Brands
matched him quite well, raking in 74 percent of his own service points. Their return game was again equal. The Indian won 26 percent of his return points and the German 25 percent. Such equality saw them proceed into a tiebreak again, and once more, the more
experienced man prevailed. Bopanna took the tiebreak 7-4.
With his passage into the main draw sealed, Bopanna is ready to start in his first major in quite a long time. His main draw opponent has not yet been revealed, but the Indian will be sure to try and make good progress here.
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