Thiago Alves snails past Pablo Galdon into last four – BVA Open 2011 CH
Thiago Alves, Brazilian wild card entrant, locked horns with the Argentine, Pablo Galdon, in the quarter-final of BVA Open Challenger tournament, hosted in Brazil, on Friday October 28th. It was the first encounter between
the contestants that lasted for almost two hours twenty minutes and ended up with a close victory for the Alves who came on top with one set down; the final score of the match was 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
World No.300 was defeated at the hands of World No.396 and right at the time when people thought that series of upsets had ended, there came another one. The home boy pleased the crowd with his scintillating display of all-round
shots and positive frame of mind.
Brazilian was having a dream run and had lost just one match in his past nine encounters whereas his opponent had lost two. It was supposed to be a real close contest provided the similar game play and technique of both players.
Galdon started the match in exciting fashion and hammered his opponent in all departments and placed a strong mark on the game. He won the first four consecutive games in a row by breaking his opponent’s serve twice in succession.
The comeback from the home boy was short lived and there was pin drop silence at the arena till the end of first set. Argentine registered an impressive first and second serve success rate of 81% and 57% respectively. Brazilian
was under immense pressure and crowd was eager to see some fight from their local favourite.
Five aces were shared in the ratio of 3:2 in favour of Galdon and it was looking as if the match will be over in the next set.
A remarkable start by the local boy in the second set brought crowd back life to crowd and they started cheering every point earned by him. Alves struck couple of aces to start off in the third game and then backed it up with a
break point in the next to take the lead of 4-1; it was good enough to give him a major advantage that lasted till the end.
Brazilian registered an impressive first and second serve success rate of 87% and 70% that was the essence of his lead in the second set. The stage was set for another thrilling final set and everyone was on the edge of their seat
and praying for an upset from their local boy.
The third set was a complete nail biting contest till the first eight games as both players held on to their serves and traded breakpoints in the fifth and sixth game to keep it level. The turning point was the second break by
the local boy in the ninth game that gave him another chance which he grabbed with both hands.
The difference of just nine points decided the match in the favour of Brazilian and he marched into the semi-finals where he faces-off against his sixth seed country mate, Ricardo Mello.
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