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Friday October 2, 2009

Monfils to take on Davydenko in the quarter-final

By LIM TEIK HUAT

KUALA LUMPUR: Fifth seed Gael Monfils set up an intriguing quarter-final match against top seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia after eliminating Martin Vassallo Arguello in a second-round match of the Proton Malaysia Open tennis championships at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil last night.

The Frenchman capitalised on four of 14 break-point opportunities in a 93-minute match, which he won 6-4-6-2, to keep intact his unbeaten record against the Argentinian.

Monfils, ranked 13th in the world, played against Arguello previously in the first round of the Australian Open this year.

“I played a solid match, a little better than him. He is a good player and I knew it was going to be a tricky match,” said Monfils, who flew in for the tournament immediately after snapping a four-year title drought at the Open de Moselle in Metz last Sunday.

The dread-locked French player, who is playing in Asia for the first time, admitted that he was still struggling with the time change. The 23-year-old got the better of jet-lag to defeat Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan in two tie-breaks in the first round.

Monfils is expecting a hard battle against Davydenko, against whom he holds a 2-1 record.

“It will be a tough. He likes to dictate a match, playing close from the baseline. I need to change the rhythm as much as I can,” he said.

In another second-round match, sixth seed Tomas Berdych battled past German Simon Greul 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to set up a match against third seed Robin Soderling of Sweden.

The Czech served for the match at 5-1 but was pegged back by the resilient Greul before succeeding at the second opportunity to serve for victory after playing for more than two hours.

Berdych, who fired nine aces yesterday, felt he played better than in the first round.

“I hope I can bring this level or even better in the next round. It is important to keep the consistency in the first matches of the tournament,” he said.

Wildcard player Joachim Johansson of Sweden wilted in the third set to exit the tournament with a 6-4, 6-7 (1-7), 2-6 defeat by Richard Gasquet of France.

Gasquet, ranked 47th in the world, said that it was not easy to play a big server like Johansson.

“His serving is always tough but I played better than him in the tie-break. My confidence grew after winning the tie-break,” he said.

World No. 12 and fourth seed Fernando Gonzalez of Chile ended qualifier Rohan Bopanna’s run by beating the Indian 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to set up a quarter-final match against Mikhail Youzhny of Russia.

In the doubles competition, top seeds Mariusz Fyrstenberg-Marcin Matkowski advanced to the semi-finals with a 5-7, 6-4, 10-1 victory over the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan pair of Andrey Golubev and Denis Istomin.

The Poles are currently in the running for a place in the eight-pair Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London next month.

They are now ranked 11th in the world and winning the Malaysian Open will put them in a strong position to claim the berth. Fyrstenberg-Matkowski were semi-finalists in last year’s Finals.

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