TENNIS ATP EASTBOURNE – Feliciano Lopez is an oddity amongst his more distinguished Spaniard compatriots such as Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer in that clay is not his preferred surface. In fact, Lopez has never won a clay court title. He has been in more hard court finals than any other surface and as of late, he is finding great success on the grass courts as he is now in his 3rd consecutive final on grass and second in as many weeks. Cordell Hackshaw
Feliciano Lopez is an oddity amongst his more distinguished Spaniard compatriots such as Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer in that clay is not his preferred surface. In fact, Lopez has never won a clay court title. He has been in more hard court finals than any other surface and as of late, he is finding great success on the grass courts as he is now in his 3rd consecutive final on grass and second in as many weeks. Last week he lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the final of the AEGON Championships, now this week, he will be looking for redemption as he defends his title at the AEGON International. The 3rd seed took out American Sam Querrey in straight sets 6-4 7-6(4) to set up a meeting with the 1st seed Richard Gasquet for the trophy.
This was Lopez’s second match for the day as he had to play his quarterfinal match against Jeremy Chardy earlier because of rain the day before. Lopez took out the Frenchman in straight sets 6-3 6-4. In his semifinal matchup, Lopez did not appear to be tired in the least. Both he and Querrey are known for their big serving and they knew the importance of holding serve particularly on grass. There were 27 aces altogether in the match; 12 from Lopez and 15 from Querrey who had yet to be broken all week coming into this match. However, in the 9th game, Querrey found himself facing triple break points. He was able to save one of them but double faulted on the second one to give Lopez a 5-4 lead. Lopez looked to be serving it out with ease as he had two set points in hand but Querrey grew defensive and attempted to break back. Lopez called upon his big serve to get him out of the trouble and closed out the set 6-4.
In the 2nd set, both men remained on serve throughout. They saw break point chances but were unable to capitalize and thus it was inevitable that they would head into a tiebreaker. Lopez had the first minibreak to go up 3-1 but give it back as both players were even at 4-4. Lopez sensing the opportunity here to close out the match in straight sets, grew more aggressive as he took the next three points to end the match with an ace 6-4 7-6(4) in 77 minutes. There was not much to separate the two as both excel at serving but lack the ability to be great offensively. They mostly rely on the serve and volley technique particularly Lopez who is far more comfortable moving around the court than Querrey. Although Lopez and Querrey got a high percentage of first serves in, it was Lopez who was winning far more points on his. He won 91% for the match compared to Querrey at 81%. Lopez dropped 15 points on his serve whereas Querrey dropped 20 and those 5 points made the difference in Lopez winning in straight sets. Lopez will need to defeat Gasquet for the first time in his career in order to retain his title.
