Fuente : Wimbledon
http://www.wimbledon.org

WIMBLEDON: Mirnyi Rains on Schuettler

/noticias.info/ Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Belarus-born Max Mirnyi blasted his way past Rainer Schuettler of Germany in the first round of the Gentlemen's Singles, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

In 2003, Schuettler, a former world No.5 now 72 in the rankings, reached the fourth round of The Championships. But this was to be Mirnyi's day, despite being knocked out in the first round in his seven previous Grand Slams.

The men had previously met six times with the German leading 4-2, but none of those matches was played on grass. And the surface certainly does no harm to the 6'5" Mirnyi's serve and volley game.

In the first set Mirnyi broke his opponent's serve at 2-1 and held on to the advantage for 6-3. The second set was nearly a replica of the first one. This time the Belarussian broke Schuettler's serve to go ahead 4-3, and didn't give up the break.

Frequent unforced errors marred Schuettler's game, even if he did get deserved applause for some skillful shots that evaded his giant opponent's reach.

In the third set, Schuettler had a chance to break Mirnyi for 3-2, but two unforced errors and a serve and volley point by Mirnyi ensured there was to be no twist to the script. Mirnyi broke Schuettler's serve at 5-4 to finish off the match, the final ball being a Schuettler unforced error to the net.

In the second round of The Championships Minsk-born Mirnyi, ranked No.36 in the world faces either Olivier Rochus of Belgium or Paul Goldstein of the USA.

Written by Jukka Viskari


Court 3 - Gentlemen's Singles - 1st Round
Max Mirnyi BLR 6 6 6
Rainer Schuettler GER 3 3 4 notas_de_prensa_archivo