After two hours of play and a total of nine breaks (five for David, four for Mathieu), David finally prevailed 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 against Paul-Henri Mathieu and booked himself a place in the second round. There, he'll face Marcel Granollers, who took out "Chucho" Acasuso. It will be David's first encounter with the young Spaniard.
The first set began with a series of three breaks, two of those against Mathieu, until David held his serve and went up 3-1. After another break against Mathieu and an easy hold, David had established a 5-1 lead. Mathieu managed to stay in the set despite a couple of deuces, 5-2. But despite the comfortable lead, David once again failed to close out the set. Helped by his errors, Mathieu broke back and then held his serve to make it 5-4. However, as David had initially been up a double break, he got another chance to serve for the set. And this time, he took it, even if with much struggling and several deuces. 6-4.
Just like the first set, the second also saw a series of three breaks early on. This time though, Mathieu was the one who went up 3-1. When David couldn't find a way to keep him from holding serve and going up 4-1, his frustration began to show (see pic below). In the end, the one break more that Mathieu had achieved in this set proved to be enough. 3-6.
In the third set, there was only one break of serve. And this time, David not only managed to carry it through the set without getting broken back. He also served out the match without much difficulty. 6-3.
I can't offer any opinion on this match as I wasn't able to watch it myself. (The summary was made possible by Arizona's notes - thanks.) But what I can gather from looking at the statistics is that his serve must have been the biggest problem in this match. At least, he seems to have served better in the third set.
Match Stats...
1st serve: 48% (set 1: 39%, set2: 48%, set 3: 58%)
Aces: 9
DFs: 10
BP Conversion: 5/11
Points won on 1st serve: 76%
Points won on 2nd serve: 48%
(all pictures: AP Photo)
4 comments:
What a relief to see David through. He was playing so well in the first set, many great winners there. But it's how he serves at the end that seems to count lately.
Against Mathieu David could stumble but regain his balance. Against a better player (eg Nadal), no way.
Despite the racquet smash David did seem to behave calmly and professionally, with good general body language. It's just that habit of serving double faults mixed in with aces (even a 2nd serve ace) that makes a muddle of the final stages of sets/matches.
In any case, it's good to see him through.
Thanks to Julia for completing the write-up based on my sketchy notes for the first two sets. :)
I am glad to see nalby went through hopefully he can get himself together again, but his upcoming schedule just seems grueling.
This is my first post here and wanted to say this is a great blog. Most of the press on david is in spanish and you do some great translations.
Thanks. :)
And welcome to the comments section.
About David's behaviour on court I've by now read some slightly different views, concerning the second set...
Anyway, the important thing is that he won. And that he served out the match without any drama.
About the serve - we'll see tomorrow. Whether this was just a bad day or whether it's a real problem (again). I'm just taking some hope from the fact that it got better towards the end of today's match.
We'll see. And this time, I'll be able to actually see it. :)
David defeated Granollers in another 3 tiring sets...another waste of energy. Next Davydenko and i'm afraid...he's going to lose
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