Photo: Ron C. Angle
Marcos is through to the quarter-finals of the Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur 2010 after clinching a hard-fought 7-5, 7-5 victory over Colombian Santiago Giraldo on Wednesday at the ATP World Tour 250 indoor hard-court tournament.
Next up for Marcos is fourth seed and recent US Open semi-finalist, Mikhail Youzhny, who battled past Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-1, 5-7, 7-5 earlier in the day.
In contrast to his comfortable first-round victory over Kei Nishikori, against whom he only dropped two games, Marcos was made to work much harder by the resilient Giraldo, who was bidding to reach his third ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season.
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After being denied on three break points during the course of the first 10 games, Marcos finally broke down the Giraldo serve to lead 6-5 as the Colombian went for too much on a backhand down the line. Marcos was never troubled on serve in the first set, only dropping five points in total, and comfortably closed out the first set on his third opportunity as Giraldo returned wide.
Marcos looked to be well on his way to a more emphatic score line in the second set as he broke serve twice to race to a 3-0 lead. However, the 22-year-old Giraldo refused to give up the fight and took advantage of rare errors from Marcos in the fourth game to recoup one of the service breaks. He then drew level as Marcos served for the match at 5-4, reaping the rewards of aggressive play on the forehand side to break serve for a second time.
With the prospect of a tie-break looming, though, Marcos quickly reined in his errors and solid play from the Cypriot allowed him to immediately regain a break of serve advantage. He then closed out the match at the second time of asking, sealing victory after one hour and 44 minutes.
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“Santiago played really well,” reflected Marcos. “He pushed me. I think he had nothing to lose, he was going for every shot and he made some great winners. I’m happy I won, I’m happy I found the solution to win and I’m looking forward. There’s a lot of positive things [in my game], I’ll talk about them with my coach and work on them and just continue."
In what has already been a great year for Marcos, he is now through to his ninth ATP World Tour quarter-final or better. He will face Youzhny on Friday.
“It will be very tough [against Youzhny]," said Marcos. "We played each other five times, he leads 3-2. It will be tough, but if I play good then I think I have a chance to win.”
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