Tomas Berdych slays Gael Monfils in round three – Mutua Madrid Open 2012
World number seven, Tomas Berdych, slaughtered the 14th ranked French, Gael Monfils, in the third round of the Mutua Madrid Open. On Thursday, the sixth seed Czech devastated his competitor in straight sets 6-1, 6-1
rounding off the match in just a fraction over 50 minutes.
It was a third head-to-head win for Berdych who has never lost to the 12th seed French. He defeated Monfils in the final of the Open Sud de France in February, earlier this year to claim the title. Before that they faced
each other in the Dubai Duty Free Championships 2008 where Berdych bagged the win in straight sets as well.
The opening set witnessed an early breakpoint for the sixth seed Czech who broke serve in the second game and consolidated a lead to 3-0. Monfils bagged the second serve game that proved to be the only consolation game of the set.
Apart from that, he wasn’t able to open up and play his natural game.
Berdych broke serve for the second time in the set in the fifth game to register a resounding lead of 5-1 and held his serve to round off the first set proceedings. Some people were just moving in the arena and the first set was
already over in a flash.
The French lost the opening serve game and went down to a trail of 0-2. Berdych won the second breakthrough in the fifth game and bagged the final breakthrough in the last game of the match to register an emphatic triumph over
the French player who has been struggling with niggling injuries throughout the year.
Tomas Berdych will face off against the 15th seed Fernando Verdasco who defeated his compatriot, Rafael Nadal, to register biggest upset of the tournament. Nadal was the defending champion but couldn’t settle into the
blue clay court surface and always hated it. He plans to snub this tournament in the future, if the officials continue to keep blue clay court as the surface of play.
Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic marched on to the quarter-final stage without any trouble. Other two successful quarter-finalists include David Ferrer and Alexandr Dolgopolov.
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