TENNIS WIMBLEDON 2014 – Sergiy Stakhovsky is making a habit of scoring a huge upset in the 2nd round of Wimbledon. Last year he took out 7-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer in 4 sets. This year, he took out 2014 French Open semifinalist Ernests Gulbis in straight sets 6-4 6-3 7-6(5). Cordell Hackshaw
Results, Order of Play, Draws and Interviews from The Championships
Sergiy Stakhovsky is making a habit of scoring a huge upset in the 2nd round of Wimbledon. Last year he took out 7-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer in 4 sets. This year, he took out 2014 French Open semifinalist Ernests Gulbis (12) in straight sets 6-4 6-3 7-6(5). From the get-go, Stakhovsky looked to be the one most comfortable on court and constantly had Gulbis under pressure. Stakhovsky broke Gulbis in the opening game at love and never looked back. Gulbis was unable to make any inroads into the Stakhovsky serve and was soon down a set 4-6 after 30 minutes.
Stakhovsky remained undeterred in the 2nd set as he broke Gulbis in the 7th game after squandering 6 previous break points in the same game. Gulbis did well to save those break points, coming up with the big serves when facing danger but in the end, Stakhovsky proved to be too strong. Serving down 3-5, Gulbis double faulted and Stakhovsky had a 2-0 sets advantage 6-4 6-3. In the 3rd set, Gulbis did well to hold on to his serve as he avoided any break point opportunities on his serve. The lone break point opportunity for Gulbis in the entire match came in the late stages of the 3rd set, but Stakhovsky fired down an ace and quickly erased that. There would be no breaks of serve in the 3rd set and so a tiebreaker would be played to decide whether to end or extend the match.
Stakhovsky secured the mini-break and was up 4-1. Gulbis won the next two points for 3-4 but then became erratic and Stakhovsky had 3 match points at 6-3. Gulbis erased two of those with a serve and volley play and a monster serve for 5-6. However, he could not save a 3rd match point when Stakhovsky served and volleyed to win the final point. Stakhovsky goes through to the 3rd round 6-4 6-3 7-6(5) in just under two hours, dismissing the 12th seed Gulbis. Gulbis had this to say of the match, “Today he served well in the match. Nothing was working from my side. Two of my biggest weapons, my serve and return, wasn’t there … I couldn’t get any free points from my serve.”
Stakhovsky played a very tidy match as he won 83% on his 1st serve, an impressive 81% on 2nd serve, 34 winners including 11 aces and 8 errors. He was 32/45 at net. Gulbis on the other hand won 79% of the points on his 1st serve but a dismal 40% on 2nd serve. Despite having 14 aces and 40 winners, he had 31 errors and 9 double faults. Stakhovsky will play Jeremy Chardy for a place in the Round of 16. Last year, after beating Federer, Stakhovsky lost in 4 sets to Jurgen Melzer. Speaking about the next round match up, Stakhovsky stated, “Well, hopefully I’ll do everything in my powers to play better next round. I believe I’m smarter. I learned from my mistakes from last year, what I’ve did wrong, and hopefully will be better.”
