On Monday at the St. Petersburg Open, three Russians were on the match schedule and all three came up on the losing end of things. World No. 340 Dominik Hrbaty (pictured) hammered No. 6 seed Dmitry Tursunov, 6-1, 6-1, in 56 minutes to earn just his fifth ATP level win of the season. Hrbaty broke serve on six occasions while losing just seven points on his first serve throughout the match. Next up for the former World No. 12 is a second round match against German Rainer Schuettler, who beat Russian Igor Kunitsyn, 6-2, 6-3, in 81 minutes. The 32-year-old Schuettler is a former finalist in St. Petersburg, losing in 2001 to Marat Safin. The only other singles winner on Monday was Romanian Victor Hanescu who defeated Evgeny Korolev, 6-1, 6-2, in convincing fashion. Hanescu, who won the Gstaad event earlier this year, could next face No. 5 seed Marin Cilic in the second round if the Croatian were to win his opening round match that will be played on Tuesday.In France at the Grand Prix de Tennis de Lyon, No. 5 seed Tommy Robredo and former World No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero were among the early first round winners. Robredo beat fan favorite Michael Llodra, 6-4, 6-3, in 64 minutes behind eight aces. Robredo improves to 36-21 on the season, as Llodra falls to 23-21 after winning two singles titles in the beginning of 2008. Spaniard Ferrero who has battled injuries recently, defeated Californian Sam Querrey, 6-3, 7-5, in 81 minutes to improve his 2008 record to 2-0 against the young American, having won at Wimbledon earlier this year. The upset of the day was provided by French wild card Josselin Ouanna who defeated veteran Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia, 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 6-4, in just over two hours. Despite the hard-hitting Croatian smacking 24 aces compared to Ouanna’s 11 aces, it was the 20-year-old Frenchman who broke serve when it mattered the most in the final set. Currently ranked No. 181 in the South African Airways ATP Rankings, Ouanna earned his first career ATP level win after three previous failed attempts. Ljubicic drops to 18-17 on the year after the loss.
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2 comments:
Wow, had no idea he is ranked #340. Maybe he's on the way back up, no?
G-
Thanks for your comment and I'm glad you noticed that Former No. 12 Dominik Hrbaty currently stands at No. 340 in the ATP Rankings.
In 2007, Hrbaty had an elbow injury for majority of the season which caused him to put up lousy results all year, which ultimately dropping his ranking big time.
His first tournament in 2008 was the Sunrise Challenger in Florida in March. Playing Challengers with an occasional ATP level tournament, Hrbaty didn't earn his first main draw win until the Casablanca event in mid-May.
The Slovakian star currently gets into ATP level main draws based on his "protected ranking" which basically allows him to play a handful of events on his last decent ranking before he took a severe hit in the South African Airways ATP Rankings. Once the "protected ranking" is no longer available to him, Hrbaty will either have to play Challengers or hope to be granted wild cards from Tournament Directors.
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