Xavier Malisse defeats Flavio Cipolla at the BNP Paribas Open
Belgium’s Xavier Malisse defeated Italy’s Flavio Cipolla 6-1, 6-4 in the first round of the BNP Paribas Open 2011 being held at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens, in Indian Wells, California. The match ended late last night and took an hour and 10 minutes to conclude.
The BNP Paribas Open, commonly known as the Indian Wells Masters, is the first ATP Masters 1000 event of the year. It enjoys massive fan attendance and, apart from the four majors, is the most popular tennis event in the world. A field of 96 players, out of which 12 are qualifiers, competes for the 1000 ATP points and the trophy.
Malisse is ranked 52nd in the world and is a veteran of the tour. The Belgian started his career in professional tennis in 1998, and as a thirty year old, is one of the most experienced players on the circuit. At one point in time, he was actually within the world top 20. His opponent Cipolla is also fairly weathered; he is 27 years old now and has been playing since the age of 20.
The man from Belgium is ranked high enough to gain direct entry into all the tournaments he competes in. Consequently, he has already played 12 tour level matches this year. His start to the year was wonderful. At Chennai, his first tournament of the year, Malisse made it all the way to the final, where he lost out to Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka. His Australian Open campaign was also cut short by a Swiss player, this time Roger Federer, who knocked him out in the 3rd round.
Cipolla’s year could not be more different. The Italian has only had one tour level match so far, and that was a first-round loss in the Australian Open. On the bright side, he won a challengers tournament in Australia right after his exit.
Going into the match, Malisse was the experts’ favorite. The Belgian is just too experienced to be ruled out of any first round encounter, as he showed well here.
The first set saw adequate serving from both the players. Malisse was slightly better, landing in 67 per cent of his first serves compared to his opponent’s 56 per cent. He was also notably better at converting serves into points, as he won 71 per cent of his service points in contrast to Cipolla’s 44 per cent. The Italian’s weak serving allowed his opponent to create 3 chances to break; one in every game he received during. Two of these three chances were converted, and so the higher-ranked player had the set.
The second set was similar, though this time Malisse served quite atrociously. He only managed to land in 47 per cent of his first serves, but was again much better than his opponent at winning points on serve. He won 63 per cent of his total service points and 47 per cent of his total return points to create 2 chances to break. Since he was successful both times, the one break he suffered was rendered insufficient and he took the set easily.
In the next round, Malisse is set to face Jo Wilfred-Tsonga, who received a bye into the second round because of his high seeding.
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