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5/20/08 12:21 AM | David Cox
It’s always sad to see past greats reduced to shadows of their former glory. Gustavo Kuerten is the prime example, the 3 time French Open champion is now way off ATP level and looks unlikely to win a match during his farewell year.
Clay king Guillermo Coria is one of the tour’s forgotten men having dominated the spring circuit for a brief period before Nadal set about raising the bar of clay-court perfection to a whole new stratosphere.
Today he won his second tour match in 19 months, recovering to defeat qualifier Peter Polansky 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Coria lost all confidence in his serve a couple of years ago and it still remains an issue for him, but today it was Polansky racking up the double faults - 10 in all.
Of the seeds, Gael Monfils opted out of Hamburg qualifying and opted to spend a week preparing for Casablanca by playing last week’s Marrakech challenger. He won the title there, but for a while today the extra week’s acclimatisation in Morocco seemed to have made little difference and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez imposed his big game. The first two sets were as tight as you can get but Garcia-Lopez ran out of steam to go down 6-7(8), 7-5, 6-0.
4th seed Marc Gicquel powered through 6-3, 6-0 over Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo, but 3rd-seeded Agustin Calleri and 5th-seeded Julien Benneteauwho had to grind through long three-setters. Benneteau is experienced in Casablanca having made the semis three years ago, but he was too patchy at times and had to rely on Florian Mayer’s level dipping in order to progress 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.
One of the day’s biggest upsets came when the ever-popular wild card Younes El Aynaoui stunned 8th seed and world No. 72 Victor Hanescu. The flamboyant Moroccan is a permanent favorite in Casablanca where he won the 2002 title, and he was roared home by a strong support base 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-3.
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