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5/20/08 12:37 AM | David Cox
At 30 Domnik Hrbaty is considered a veteran on the tennis tour. However, he’s positively youthful compared to the 36-year-old Younes El Aynaoui, who just keeps on going and turned pro all the way back in 1990.
El Aynaoui's blistering forehand still proves effective, especially on the clay, and over the past month he won a challenger in Switzerland before making the Munich semis, pushing Fernando Gonzalez to three sets.
As you’d expect, past Hrbaty-El Aynaoui duels go back a long way and it’s the Slovak who’s turned up trumps in all three. He started the sequence in Key Biscayne 1999, winning 6-7, 6-3, 6-0, then in Indian Wells the following year, and most crushingly, 6-3, 6-4 in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Hrbaty has had the slightly more illustrious career, one more title (6) and a career best of ranking of No. 12, two places higher than the Moroccan managed and notably he actually made it to the finals of two Masters Series events (Monte Carlo and Paris).
Hrbaty had the easiest of passages through to the last 16, when Peter Luzcak retired at 2-1 down in the first set. Poor old El Aynaoui had to battle for over two hours against 8th seed Hanescu. However, Hrbaty must have breathed a vast sigh of relief having finally broken an ATP losing streak of nine matches, astonishingly going all the way back to Canada last summer.
Prediction: El Aynaoui to continue to delight home fans, in three.
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Younes El Aynaoui
Dominik Hrbaty
Grand Prix Hassan II
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