Feliciano Lopez continued his string of impressive clay court results today, coming from behind to beat Milos Raonic 4-6 7-6(2) 6-4 at the Masters 1000 Madrid Open.
Lopez, who reached the final last week in Serbia before losing to white hot Novak Djokovic, broke the 20 year-old Canadian’s serve for the first and only time in the opening game of the third set and made it hold up, facing only one break point on serve in the deciding set.
Raonic, coming into the match with a career-high ranking of No. 25, capitalized on the only break point of the first set in the fifth game, and quickly consolidated the advantage to take control and win the opening stanza 6-4. Raonic fired 11 aces in the first set, en route to 23 for the match, showing no ill effects from a lower back strain that caused him to retire in the semifinals last week at the Estoril Open in Portugal.
Lopez hung tough in the second set, which seemed destined to be decided by a tiebreaker from the outset. Neither player faced a break point in the set. The Spaniard seized control of the breaker early, using a combination of wide serves and powerful forehands, keeping the Canadian on his heels.
Lopez, who reached the 3rd round of this tournament last year, will face No. 3 Roger Federer in the 2nd round. Lopez has never beaten Federer in seven matches against the former top-ranked Swiss superstar. This will be their first matchup since 2008 and their first match ever on clay. Federer had a bye in the 1st round.
It was another good win for Lopez, ranked No. 39, who has scored upset wins over Janko Tipsarevic, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Juan Monaco and Albert Montanes so far on this year’s European clay court swing.
But the news was not all good for his fellow Spaniards as No. 15 seed Fernando Verdasco fell to Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan in straight sets, 7-6(7) 7-5. Verdasco joins Montanes, Nicolas Almagro, who lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his debut as a top 10 player, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Pablo Andujar as Spaniards who failed to advance out of the 1st round.
John Isner, a day after beating No. 11 seed and top-ranked American Mardy Fish in the third set tiebreaker, found himself in the same position Tuesday evening on an outside court. Isner, who won the match over Fish without breaking serve, was unable to keep the magic alive, falling to Ukranian Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-3 in the decisive tiebreaker. Isner was only able to break serve once today.
The second round will continue tomorrow, with the top seeds taking the court for the first time. Defending champion and world No. 1 Rafael Nadal will meet Marcos Baghdatis, and No.2 Djokovic, riding a year-long 27 match winning streak, will face South African Kevin Anderson.
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