COUNTRYWIDE CLASSIC
By Steve Pratt
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Mardy Fish - USA |
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Photo by Adam
Davis |
It went from oh-so-close to not so close at all as
Mardy Fish advanced to his first Countrywide Classic
quarterfinal with a 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-0 victory over
Vincent Spadea in an All-American second-round match
Wednesday on a day filled with upsets at the Los
Angeles Tennis Center.
Spadea simply seemed to run out of gas and couldn’t
keep up with Fish’s serving game after the first set
as the No. 6 seed let loose on 14 aces in the 1
hour, 51 minute match.
Fish’s good friend and the tournament’s top-seeded
player Andy Roddick opens play Thursday night against lucky
loser Dusan Vemic.
Two Spainards seeded No. 2 and 4 were shown the door
as Germany's Denis Gremelmayr upset fourth-seeded
Feliciano Lopez, 7-5, 7-5. The 26-year-old
Gremelmayr next meets Marat Safin in the
quarterfinals.
Fernando Verdasco, the No. 2 seed, was the next to
fall as he lost to Frenchman Florent Serra 6-2, 7-6
(4). Serra said he’s playing with confidence even
after a tough loss to Rafael Nadal last week in
Cincinnati where he fell 6-0, 6-1.
Serra admitted it’s easy to get intimidated when
facing Nadal. “At least with Roger (Federer) he’s
going to give you a couple of games,” said Serra,
who also lost to the future No. 1 Nadal at the
Australian Open, 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.
In other quarterfinal matches Thursday Andrea
Stoppini faces Juan Martin Del Porto; Donald Young
takes on Marc Gicquel and Carlos Moya plays Amer
Delic.
For questions or comments email Steve at
steve@tennisnews.com |
