Santiago Giraldo topples Carlos Salamanca in opener – Claro Open 2013
Colombian top ranked star, Santiago Giraldo, eased past the Bogota native, Carlos Salamanca, in straight sets at the inaugural Claro Open Colombia 2013 on Monday. He penned down a 6-2, 6-4 victory against his compatriot to power
into the second round at this ATP World Tour 250 series event taking place in Bogotá, Colombia.
Seeded sixth in this event, Giraldo showed his class at this hard court event. He overpowered Salamanca after cashing half of the eight break chances in this 62-minute marathon. The contestants previously met each other at the
Bogota Challenger three years ago and with this victory, the seed avenged his loss.
Giraldo thundered into this battle. After Salamanca held his serve in the third game, the seeded Colombian unleashed barrage of winners and reeled off five straight games. As a result, Giraldo grabbed the opener with a 6-2 victory.
Ranked 96th in the Emirates Airways ATP World Tour Rankings, Giraldo carried his rhythm in the following set. He drew the first blood in the seventh game and put his nose ahead for the first time in this set. Regardless
of squandering his edge in the very next game, Giraldo stayed calm. He capitalised on another break opportunity in the ninth game and subsequently sealed the set by winning six games to four.
On the whole, Giraldo clobbered a better first serve share of 65 per cent as opposed to his left-handed compatriot’s 62 per cent and impressively marked 29 out of 36 points on it. He managed to hammer only a single ace but warded
off three out of four break chances he came across to steal the show.
The fifth seed, Adrian Mannarino, also earned the limelight later that day. He managed to win a single point on his serve in the second set but stayed focused to carve out a 6-4, 0-6, 6-4 victory against the local wild card entrant,
Alejandro Gonzalez. The Frenchman required two hours and four minutes to overpower his opponent and progressed into the second round. Mannarino is coming off fourth round showing at the Wimbledon Championships few weeks ago.
The Australian challenger, Matthew Ebden, also recorded a topsy-turvy win over his opponent, Jimmy Wang from Taiwan. Ebden lost his track in the second set but lifted his game again afterwards, subsequently sealing the deal with
a 6-1, 2-6, 6-1 victory. This was Ebden’s first ATP tour-level victory since March at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
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