Article

  • Round two wraps up in Estoril - almost

    4/18/08 2:18 AM | Cheryl Murray
    - Except for one match that was rain delayed, the quarterfinals for Estoril are set. Denis Gremelmayr and Jiri Vanek are among those who advanced on Thursday. It will be the first quarterfinal of 2008 for both men.

    Thursday was scheduled to be the last day for round two play before the quarterfinals. Except that the rain had other ideas, and now Joao Sousa and Frederico Gil will have to wait until Friday to complete their match. Sousa is a Portuguese qualifier who acted as Roger Federer's hitting partner last weekend and his countryman Gil was gifted a wild card into the tournament. They were apparently bolstered by the support of the home crowd. Gil won the first set 7-6(5), 0-1 when the rains came. Roger Federer is awaiting the winner.

    Joining Federer in the quarters is German Denis Gremelmayr. Gremelmayr defeated Russia's Teimuraz Gabashvili 7-6(6), 6-1. This was a sloppy match all the way around. The first set alone featured six breaks of serve, three for Gremelmayr and three for Gabashvili. The German was just able to pull out the tiebreak. Losing the set after so many opportunies was simply too much for Gabashvili and he fell apart in the second set. He went 0/9 on first serve returns and an almost as dismal 2/9 on second serves. Gremelmayr advances to his first quarterfinal since 2006. He will meet the Czech Republic's Jiri Vanek.

    Gremelmayr's countryman Michael Berrer was not so fortunate in his result. He lost a close three setter to Jiri Vanek 6-3, 3-6, 7-5. This is by far Vanek's best results for the year. Prior to Estoril, he had won just one match in five tournament tries. The match probably would not have gone the distance except that Vanek served at a dismal 25% in the middle set, and Berrer was actually able to capitalize and broke on his single opportunity.

Tell a friend »

Comments


Write comment

You have to be logged in to comment. If you do not have an account, click here to register. It only takes a minute and you'll be redirected back to this page.
Username:

Password: