Photo: Ron C. Angle
Marcos backed up his impressive first-round win over World No. 5 Andy Murray by dismissing Spanish left-hander Feliciano Lopez 7-6(3), 6-3 on Thursday at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament.
The first set was dominated by serve, with Marcos winning 95 per cent of points behind his first serve and Lopez 87 per cent. Neither player yielded a break point and it was in the decisive tie-break that Marcos pulled away, hitting a backhand down the line pass to earn a mini-break before benefiting from a forehand error from Lopez to clinch the set.
Marcos earned the first break points of the match in the fourth game of the second set, stepping in to hit a backhand pass off the return, and he converted his second chance as another rifling return forced the error from Lopez. He then went on to seal victory on serve in the ninth game after 80 minutes.
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“This match was a tricky one,” said Marcos. “Beating Murray and then playing Lopez, a player that doesn’t give you rhythm, serves well and likes to play in these conditions. What I did well today was take my chances in the tie-break and in the second set, the same thing.”
For a place in the semi-finals Marcos will face seventh seed Ivan Ljubicic, against whom he has a 4-1 career lead. “Ivan is a great player,” said Marcos. “He’s playing great tennis. He serves well. I’ll try to continue the way I’m playing, stay concentrated, be aggressive at the important points and I think I have the weapons to win.”
The match is scheduled to take place on Centre Court on Friday, beginning not before 12:30pm local time (1:30pm Cyprus, 11:30am UK, 6:30am ET). Check out the full order of play here.
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Go, Marcos!
