Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo trounces Simon Stadler in round one - Barranquilla Challenger 2012
Spain’s sixth seed participant, Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo, squashed the 28-years-old German qualifier, Simon Stadler, to open his account in the Barranquilla Challenger tournament on Wednesday. He outfoxed the German in straight sets
6-2, 6-4 taking just an hour and 37 minutes.
The opening set was completely hijacked by the superior ranked player who went on to register a resounding lead of 4-0 upfront. He had already broken his opponent’s serve twice and was looking all set to register a bagel.
However, the German salvaged some respect by breaking Hidalgo’s serve in the fifth game and more importantly depleted the trail to 2-4 courtesy to a tight serve hold in the sixth game. The Spaniard stayed focused on the task and
grabbed the following two games to down her opponent in the opening set.
A shining statistic for the Spaniard was his conversion ratio of breakpoints allotted; three out of three. His opponent created five chances to break serve but could only convert one of then that probably led to his downfall.
The sixth seed won the set with a difference of ten points; grabbing 35 out of 60 points played. He was the hot favourite to repeat the heroics in the second set as well. The proceedings in the first half of the second set kept
the scores together at 3-3. Both players had already broken each other’s serve.
Scores further tickled over to 4-4 and Hidalgo registered a tight serve hold to switch the pressure back on his opponent. Stadler had to hold serve to keep the set as well as the match alive for him but he failed to do so; could
only bag a couple of points before the Spaniard smashed a blistering down the line winner to finish off the match in style.
It was just a matter of single point in the end that separated the winner from the loser in the second set. The sixth seed Spaniard had won 34 compared to 33 of his opponent but he managed to convert two out of three allotted breakpoints
that pulled curtains for his rival.
Hidalgo plays the Argentine starlet, Martin Alund, in round two.
Tags: