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  • Second-Round Open 13 Summary: Bottom Half

    2/15/08 8:43 AM | Ricky Dimon
    - Robin Soderling isn’t the only player coming back from injury to pull off a big win on Thursday at the Open 13 in Marseille, as Mario Ancic takes care of Teimuraz Gabashvili in straight sets. In the other section of the bottom half, Mikhail Youzhny and Marcos Baghdatis cruise to set up a huge quarterfinal showdown.

    Mario Ancic, who had not played in 2008 prior to this week due to nagging shoulder and back injuries, rolled over qualifier Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-3, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of the Open 13. The 6’5’’ Croat served 11 aces in eight service games and did not drop serve once. Ancic lost only eight total points on serve the entire match. He also broke the Russian a whopping four times in just nine return games. Ancic’s next match, a quarterfinal tilt with Swede Robin Soderling, will feature some huge serving and most likely very few—if any—breaks of serve. Soderling bombed 19 aces in his second-round upset of Richard Gasquet.

    Third-seeded Mikhail Youzhny is also through to the quarterfinals after a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Juilien Benneteau. Both players dominated on serve in the first set before Youzhny capitalized on the first break point of the match to take the opening frame 7-5. Although the second set also featured just one break of serve, things were much different throughout the last nine games of the match. Benneteau had seven break chances against the Russian’s serve, but Youzhny saved all of them. While he was solid off both sides from the baseline, Youzhny benefitted from several net cords and that helped him fend off the pesky Frenchmen.

    In the quarterfinals Youzhny will take on sixth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis, a 6-4, 6-4 winner over Ivo Karlovic on Thursday night. It’s never an easy task to break the booming serve of the 6’10’’ Croat, but Baghdatis did it once in each set. The difference in this match was simply break-point conversions. Karlovic squandered all six of his break chances while the Cypriot capitalized on two of his three opportunities. Always one of the best returners in the game thanks to his short backswing and clean ball-striking, Baghdatis dictated play right from the start on points in which Karlovic failed to put in his first serve. He won 53 percent of Karlovic’s second-serve points and even won eight points against the giant’s first serve, not a huge number by any means but certainly better than most.

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