Somdev Devvarman defeats Greg Jones for main draw spot in BNP Paribas Open 2011 men's qualifiers
Indian number one and World number 84 Somdev Devvarman defeated Australia's world number 281 Greg Jones to book his spot in the main draw of the BNP Paribas Open 2011. The BNP Paribas Open is the first Masters event of the year and is being held at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens in Indian Wells, California.
Devvarman went into the tie highly favoured; he has been playing good tennis all this year and has more experience at the Masters level than his opponent. Also, because of his relatively high ranking, he was named second seed for these qualification matches. Greg Jones has not had any tour-level play this season and Devvarman used his greater exposure to his advantage in their match-up.
The tie started off with the Indian dominating. He fired in three aces and kept his first serve percentage up at 71 percent. His opponent could only manage to deliver 57 percent of his own first serves correctly, and so lagged behind. Exacerbating the Australian's plight was the fact that Devvarman converted a whopping 88 percent of his first serves into points, while he could only do so 58 percent of the time. Consequently, Devvarman won 71 percent of his total points on serve, compared to Jones' 48 percent. Atrocious serving by the lower ranked player provided his opponent with two break points, both of which he converted. The Australian could not break back, and so the first set went to Devvarman, 6-2.
The second set saw Jones trying his hardest to get back into the match. He admirably raised his first serve percentage to 71 percent, higher this time round than Devvarman's 67 percent. The Indian, however, was once again better at converting serves into points. He managed to win 75 percent of the points his first serve struck true on, compared to the lower 65 percent that his opponent managed.
Over all, the higher seed managed to win 67 percent of his total service points. Jones was surprisingly close here, managing to win 64 percent of the points that he served on. Unfortunately for the Australian, his opponent's experience paid off here. He saved all three break points that he faced, while the world number 282 could only manage to salvage two out of three situations. One break was enough to see Devvarman through though, as he took the set 6-4.
Devvarman's main draw opponent has not yet been decided, but it is indeed heartening to see this young talent from India getting regular tour level play this season.
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