Sam Querrey upsets Julien Benneteau in the round of 16 – AEGON Championships 2012
USA’s Sam Querrey, ranked 77th in the world, put on a determined show to upset the eighth seed, Julien Benneteau of France, in three sets 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the third round at the AEGON Championships in London on Thursday.
It took the American one hour and 44 minutes to win the match and reach the last eight at this ATP World Tour 250 event.
Querrey and Benneteau held their serve in the first five games of the contest, taking the score to 3-2 in the favour of the former. The American struck a blow at that moment and consolidated on it to build a 5-2 lead. Benneteau
won his serve in the eighth game to reduce the deficit to 3-5 but lost the next one to go down 3-6.
In the second set, both players won their serve in the opening three games to take the score to 2-1 in Benneteau’s favour. The Frenchman claimed breakthrough in the fourth and held his next serve to attain a 4-1 advantage. Querrey
failed to stage a comeback and lost it 3-6.
The decider went on somewhat similar pattern as the first two sets, as the American and Frenchman did not allow each other to break serve in the first seven games and took the score to 4-3 in the favour of Querrey. The American
contender finally broke the ice, as he hit a blow in the eighth and served it out at 5-3.
Querrey said, giving an interview after the match, “I have been feeling better every week this year, and my serve is feeling great. I've only dropped serve once so far in three matches.”
He added, "Return game is feeling good. Yeah, that's the first time I have won three matches in a row in a while. Just feeling really confident."
Querrey attained his best ranking of world number 17 at the start of 2011 but he is now out of even the top 50. He said, “I feel like right now this is my time where I can make my jump back and get into the top 50 and then from
there move forward. It’s been really tough. It takes a while. You can’t just have one good week and jump straight back into the top 20.”
The American will take on Ivan Dodig of Croatia in the quarter-finals. Dodig also made an upset, beating the second seed, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, in the third round.
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