Teymuraz Gabashvili, Ivan Dodig sail into the quarterfinals – UNICEF Open 2011
Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili warded off early resistance to win in straight sets against Spaniard Javier Marti at UNICEF Open 2011, a grass court tournament held in s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. He registered a 7-6(6), 6-3 victory over the 19-year-old Spaniard to advance into the last eight on Tuesday.
World number 142 Gabashvili took one hour and forty-two minutes to triumph over the Spanish teenager, ranked 92 places below him, on their first meeting.
26-year-old Russian confidently entered this ATP World Tour 250 series event and plausibly held his opening serve. Despite losing his sere twice, he clobbered a higher first serve share and broke back youngster’s serve twice to drag the opener into a tie-breaker. Gabashvili prevailed in it to seal the set with a 7-6(6) score line.
He failed to save both breakpoints conceded but converted two out of three breakpoint chances to his advantage.
The Russian carried his winning ways in the final set and held his serve in the first game to take the initial lead. Although the Russian failed to save the only breakpoint faced, he converted two out of seven breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to clinch the set with a 6-3 win.
Up next for the Russian is the fourth seeded Croat Ivan Dodig, the first to reach the final eight here.
26-year-old Croat took one hour and twenty-three minutes to overpower Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer, who is two years younger than him, with a 6-4, 6-3 score line.
Dodig exchanged an early break in the opening set and later maintained consistency in his level of game to convert another breakpoint opportunity to his advantage. He then held his serve in the last game to seal the opener with a 6-4 win. The Zagreb resident clobbered a lower first serve share of 63 percent as compared to Maurer’s 71 percent but earned a plausible 68 percent win on it.
Ranked 42nd in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, Dodig improved his gameplay in the final set as he rolled the balls expertly onto the lines to smoothly pluck his entire serves. To spice it further, he smacked four ferocious aces and saved both breakpoints conceded. The Croat converted two out of three breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to bag the final set with a convincing 6-3 score line. He produced a much better first serve share this time and earned a fascinating 76 percent win on it.
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