David Ferrer, winner in Paris Bercy in 2012 and recent champion in Vienna, cruised past to a 6-2 6-2 win in one hour over Alexander Dolgopolov without facing a single break in the whole match to reach the third round at the BNP Paribas Masters, the ninth Master 1000 Tournament of the season, which is underway at the brand-new Accorhotel Arena in Paris Bercy. Ferrer will take on either Grigor Dimitrov or Marin Cilic in the second round.
Ferrer broke in the fifth game for 3-2 in the first set en route to cruising to 6-2 in the first set. In the second set Ferrer repeated the break for 3-2 in the fifth game and held his next service games to win the second set with 6-2. Ferrer won for the eighth time in his career against Dolgopolov, who beat the Spanish player in the semifinal in Rio de Janeiro last year.
With his recent win in Vienna Ferrer has won his 26th career title and his 12th trophy on hard-court indoors or outdoors showing his ability to play at excellent level on all surfaces. Quite surprisingly for a player known as a clay specialist “Ferru” has won 12 hard-court titles, 12 on clay and 2 on grass at s’Hertogenbosch. He has clinched nine of his last 15 titles since 2012 on hard-court or grass surfaces. This year he has lifted five titles in Doha, Rio de Janeiro, Acapulco, Kuala Lumpur and Vienna. He won only only of these five tournaments on clay in Rio de Janeiro where he beat Fabio Fognini. He reached the semifinal in the Rome Master 1000 losing to Novak Djokovic and the quarter final in the Roland Garros losing to Andy Murray in four sets.
French qualifier Edouard Roger Vasselin, the son of 1983 Rolamd Garros semifinalist Christophe Roger Vasselin, fought back from losing the the first set to battle past “ace king” Ivo Karlovic in the two tie-breaks of the second and the third set for 4-6 7-6 (7-1) 7-6 (7-5) in two hours and 13 minutes setting up a second round round against Tomas Berdych. Karlovic was broken to love as he was serving for the match at 5-3.
The defeat against Roger Vasselin ended Karlovic’s hope to break the ace record in a single season currently held by Goran Ivanisevic who fired 1477 aces in 1996.
“It’s a surprise to reach the second round as I have not had a good feeling when I played the singles this year”, said Roger Vasselin, the Roland Garros doubles champion in 2014.
Jeremy Chardy rallied from a set down to edge his compatriot Lucas Pouille with 3-6 6-3 6-2. Pouille, who reached the third round last year in Paris Bercy, went up 6-3 3-1 in the second set against his compatriot Jeremy Chardy who fought back by reeling off 11 of the next 13 games to win the all-French match in three sets with 3-6 6-3 6-2
