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]
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