Ernests Gulbis survives Jeremy Chardy in three sets on Tuesday in Stockholm. Next up for Gulbis is a round of 16 match against Igor Sijsling.
Ernests Gulbis kicked off his If Stockholm campaign with a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(3) win over Jeremy Chardy on Tuesday afternoon. Gulbis overcame seven double-faults by firing 15 aces and saving 10 of 12 break points to advance after two hours and 20 minutes.
The fifth-seeded Latvian converted both of his break chances during the match, including one in the first set which he consolidated without facing a single break point on his own serve. A mid-match hiccup, however, saw Gulbis drop serve once in the second and again with a 3-1 lead in the third.
That resulted in several outbursts, including a broken racket, a medical timeout for bloody knuckles after punching his strings, and an argument with Mohamed Lahyani stemming from a time violation.
Chardy held his nerve nicely, including when he battled out of a 0-30 hole while serving to stay in the match at 5-6. The Frenchman, however, could not fully recover from some poor net play in the tiebreaker that put him behind two mini-breaks. Gulbis gave one of them back at 3-0, but he held en route to a 6-3 advantage before capitalizing on his first match point thanks to a forehand error from Chardy.
Next up for the world No. 26 is Igor Sijling, who beat Tobias Kamke 6-4, 6-2 on Monday.
post-match interview
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5sYTN9EZzg]
This guy is a loose cannon. He’s the epitome of a ‘spoilt brat’ without any redeeming qualities and appears to be labouring under the illusion he is funny and amusing.
^^^ great for the game
Agree. Need more like him IMO. So is Nole getting demonstrably angry at the Shanghai crowd when they cheered for Delpo.
I like the players to show their emotion on the court. (Just don’t like Rafa hitting himself out of character).
#BTDT
agreed (with the first part)
LOL…gulbis is unique. But shows you, talent alone cant take you anywhere close to the top
I watched some of the Gulbis/Chardy match. I never really enjoy Gulbis because he has wasted his natural talent. But the match was well played. You never know when Gulbis will step up at a tournament and decide to play some decent tennis.