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Marin Cilic, who is seeded number 4 at the Monte Carlo tournament, had to work hard to pass Igor Andreev, who put up a stern battle in the first set while Marin took a while to get going. The two exchanged breaks multiple times in the first set before Andreev finally took the tiebreak 7-4. However, Igor couldn’t maintain the momentum.
Cilic came out firing in the second set, racing to a 4-0 lead with Andreev working hard to desperately hold serve and at least position himself to serve first in the third. But it wasn’t to be. Cilic took the match 6-7, 6-1, 6-4 in 2 hours and 51 minutes.
“I just wanted to stay in it after losing that first set by making him play a lot of shots. Afterwards I found some solutions so I could win easier points and win the mental battle.”
Later that day Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nico Almagro took to the court to replay the brilliant Australian Open 4th round match which Tsonga narrowly escaped with even though Almagro was playing with a broken wrist. This match was much the same. The two went toe-to-toe thumping winners and grunting endlessly (particularly Almagro) with the game being decided by a matter of millimeters. Luckily for Tsonga he got the early mini break in the first set tiebreak and finally managed to break again in the second as the Spaniard tried to force a tiebreak.
Tsonga had broken the Spaniard to serve for a 6-3 second set scoreline but was broken himself when trying to do so. Tsonga took the match in the end 7-6, 7-5.
“With all these Spaniards in my part of the draw, I knew it would be complicated from the start.”
Tsonga will most likely face Juan Carlos Ferrero, another Spaniard, in the next round.
Retired tennis player Elena Dementieva is a step closer to having the family she talked about when she retired. On July 16 Elena married hockey champion Maxim Afinogenov at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow.
