Stanislas Wawrinka holds off Tomas Berdych in three sets on Monday in London. Juan Martin Del Potro also prevails in three, winning his opener against Richard Gasquet.
Group A: (7) Stanislas Wawrinka d. (5) Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-7(0), 6-3
Wawrinka won his first-ever World Tour Finals match by defeating Berdych in two hours and 25 minutes during round-robin action on Monday afternoon. The Swiss held all 16 of his service games to mostly stay in control from start to finish aside from a tiebreaker in which he did not win a single point. Wawrinka earned his second break of the day at 3-2 in the third before holding his next two service games with ease.
“Losing is not a good start,” assured Berdych, who fired 16 aces but double-faulted eight times. “But there are still two other matches to go. It was a very close game again. Stan was better in actually executing the chances. He had four break points, make two. I had five, make zero. I think that’s been really a big difference today.”
Group B: (4) Juan Martin Del Potro d. (8) Richard Gasquet 6-7(4), 6-3, 7-5
Del Potro remained in stellar form and improved his lifetime record against Gasquet to 6-1 by triumphing in two hours and 23 minutes on Monday night. The Argentine, a champion in Tokyo and Basel and a runner-up in Shanghai, began his quest for a second straight trip to the London semifinals in winning fashion. It was Gasquet, though, who got off to a strong start. The Frenchman, making his first year-end championship appearance since 2007, failed to serve out the opening set at 5-3 but recovered to win a tiebreaker.
Although Gasquet continued to play well, Del Potro bounced back impressively and the underdog did not see another break point until the third to last game of the match. Out of nowhere, Del Potro dropped serve to love at 5-4 in the third. Nonetheless, the world No. 5 broke right back in part thanks to a controversial call at 30-40. Del Potro made no mistake with the match on his racket a second time and he eventually converted match point by forcing Gasquet into a backhand return error.
Both the yesterday’s singles matches were tense affairs with all the players are showing signs of weariness. I was actually surprised how well Gasquet played – urged on by a noisy contingent of French fans and strong support from the crowd. At the outset Delpo looked even more lethargic than normal (if that’s possible) but once he decided he was going to win he was simply too strong for Gasquet.
Apart from the lopsided tiebreak this was a good start for WaWa on his first outing to the WTF Beating Berdych will be a much needed boost for his confidence in the tough matches ahead.
Both Berdych and Gasquet had plenty of chances…plenty, but just couldn’t win the key points. Doubles action is very fun to watch on TC.