Ryan Sweeting defeats Marcel Granollers at the BNP Paribas Open 2011
Ryan Sweeting of America defeated Marcel Granollers of Spain in straight sets during the first round of the BNP Paribas Open 2011 on Thursday night. The match, which lasted for 1 hour and 26 minutes, had a final score of 6-4, 6-1.
The event is being held at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens in Indian Wells, California and is the first ATP Masters 1000 event of the year. Colloquially known as the Indian Wells Masters, it is the most popular tennis event in the world apart from the four
grand slams in terms of fan attendance.
The match between Sweeting and Granollers also saw decent crowd attendance, particularly because of World no.105 Sweeting, who is one of the several players from America in the tournament. The 23-year-old is a qualifier and has
already been through two matches here. Granollers, on the other hand, got direct entry into the tournament, thanks to his ranking as the World no.50. The 24-year-old from Barcelona has been playing tennis since he was 17 and has one ATP career title under
his belt so far.
So far this year, Ryan Sweeting has played 7 ATP Tour level matches. Two of his three tour level victories came at Delray Beach. There, he won 5 consecutive matches to make it from the qualifiers to the quarterfinals, where he
lost to former champion Kei Nishikori of Japan in a tough three setter. He also made it to the second round of the Australian Open, where he was defeated by world no.1 Rafael Nadal.
Granollers has also played 7 tour level matches so far this year, however, he has only won two. One of his victories came in Dubai, where he beat Dmitry Tursunov in straight sets. The other came in Auckland, against Bobby Reynolds
of the USA.
Going into the match Granollers was the definite favorite, considering that he was ranked 55 places above his opponent. His American opponent had an edge on him as far as match practice was concerned, however, since the Spaniard
did not have to go through the qualifiers, unlike Sweeting.
As the game started, the American put his run of form to good use. The first set saw the 23-year-old deliver 69 per cent of his first serves correctly. His opponent could only manage a meager 47 per cent; moreover, he was also
worse at converting serves into points. In this regard, Sweeting led 63 per cent to 56 per cent, allowing him a certain dominance over return games. Despite going down a break, the American rallied. He broke back twice in quick succession, and took the set
at 6-4.
The second set saw Sweeting exert complete control. He delivered 71 per cent of his first serves correctly and won a whopping 61 per cent of his return points to create 4 break points for himself. He only needed to convert 3 of
those, and doing so, took the set 6-1 to seal the match.
In the next round, Ryan Sweeting takes on 27th seed Juan Monaco of Argentina, who received a bye into the second round. Considering how well he performed against Granollers, a player with a game similar to Monaco’s,
the American will surely be fancying his chances.
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