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  • Monte-Carlo Day 3, Third Quarter Summary

    4/23/08 4:19 AM | Ricky Dimon
    - Only one minor surprise took place on Tuesday in the third quarter of the Masters Series Monte-Carlo draw, as Simone Bolelli ousted Juan Ignacio Chela. Formidable clay-court players Nicolas Almagro and Juan Monaco also advanced.

    Nicolas Almagro d. Jean-Rene Lisnard 6-4, 6-4

    This one was expected to be lopsided, as the wild card Lisnard is ranked No. 238 in the world and Almagro already has two clay-court titles in 2008. Lisnard managed to put up a decent fight, but the outcome was never in doubt. Almagro started to run away with the match in the second set, surging to a 5-1 lead, but the Spaniard lost focus on the brink of victory and dropped serve for the first time at 5-2. He closed out the proceedings in his next service game to move on to the second round, where he will meet 11th-seeded Juan Monaco.

    (11) Juan Monaco d. Hyung-Taik Lee 6-0, 7-5

    Monaco is a beast to deal with on clay, especially when you’re 32-years-old. For the veteran Lee, it looked like an impossible task in the first set, as Monaco ran away from the Korean 6-0. Lee, however, fought back and even took an advantage in the second frame of play. Never to be outdone in the department of fighting and grinding, Monaco broke serve down 4-5 in the second set to level the score. The Argentine then held serve and broke Lee once again to finish off the match.

    Simone Bolelli d. Juan Ignacio Chela 6-2, 6-2

    Chela, the 28-year-old Argentine, has slumped this year while Bolelli is an up-and-coming Italian who has started to make a name for himself in 2008. Still, Chela should have been able to make this an even match or at least a closer one. Instead, Chela’s serve completely let him down and never allowed him to contend. He put in just 44 percent of his first offerings and double-faulted six times. Chela also failed to be aggressive with Bolelli’s second serves, as he won just five of 19 second-serve return points. For those reasons, Bolelli advanced in routine fashion to take on No. 4 seed Nikolay Davydenko in round two.

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