[DC]Coria Makes Winning Davis Cup Debut
06 Feb 2004 - Salle Inbiaat, Agadir, MAR - Chris Bowers
Coria Makes Winning Davis Cup Debut
The scoreline looks harsh, but really it wasn't. The 61 61 64 margin by
which Guillermo Coria beat Mounir el Aarej in the opening rubber of the
Morocco v Argentina first round tie was a fair reflection of the difference
between the fourth and 428th players in the world.
El Aarej, a replacement for the injured Younes el Aynaoui, did his best to
keep happy a loud and colourful home crowd, that featured many people in
traditional Arabic and Berber costume playing drums and other musical
instruments, but even in the third set when the 26-year-old Moroccan made
the score respectable, the difference in class was still massive.
The home nation was ahead for just one point. El Aarej opened with a serve
which Coria couldn't return, but after the third point, the first real rally
of the match, it was clear the Moroccan had nothing from the baseline with
which to hurt Coria. His one chance was to make the most of his big serve,
but his first serve percentage of 59% was respectable but too low.
Though men's tennis has immense strength in depth, the difference between
the two players was still marked. El Aarej spends most of his time on the
Futures circuit, where players don't hit the ball as hard or consistently
as those in the top 100. As a result, he was made to play more balls than
he is used to, many of his best shots came back, and Coria's power from the
baseline meant el Aarej was frequently late with his footwork.
After two identical 25-minute sets, el Aaraj did manage to take advantage of
a Coria lull in the third. He was clearly thinking throughout the match,
using drop shots and the occasional precision lob to keep Coria on his toes,
but only in the third set did he string together enough points to challenge
the world No 4. And yet there was something inevitable about the break Coria
took at 4-4, and he served out the victory to 15 in the next game to win in
90 minutes.
For Coria it was just the kind of match he would have hoped for after a
somewhat jerky start to the year.
"I was a little nervous at the beginning," he said. "I was determined to get
revenge for losing in the first round in Australia by representing my country
very well, and I prepared very thoroughly for this Davis Cup tie."
Despite the admission of nerves, Coria looked relaxed on court. He clearly
never felt threatened, and was able and willing to applaud his opponent"s
good shots whenever the opportunity presented itself. He also won without
ever facing break point.
All is not lost for Morocco. El Aarej was never seriously expected to beat
Coria, but the second rubber pitting Hicham Arazi against David Nalbandian
was expected to be more of a 50:50 call. If Arazi could win that, the
Moroccans would still be unlikely to reach the quarter-finals, but at least
the Argentinians would sleep less easily.
--
(安靜︰一位天使穿過這漫長的瞬間，它漫長得像一百個太陽的生命)
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc)
◆ From: 61.230.112.139
Latin_AM 近期熱門文章
PTT體育區 即時熱門文章
