Wake Forest Athletics
W-S Open Semifinals: Monfils, Melzer Advance
8/23/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Aug 23, 2013
Winston-Salem Open Official Site
By Ben Helms, Wake Forest Athletic Communications
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The championship match of the Winston-Salem Open is set, as Gael Monfils and Jurgen Melzer advanced to face each other Saturday afternoon on Center Court at the Wake Forest Tennis Center.
Following is a recap of Friday's semifinals action.
Monfils clinches finals berth with victory over Dolgopolov
After falling behind 4-0 in the first set, 15-seeded Gael Monfils defeated Alexandr Dolgopolov by a score of 7-6(9), 6-4 to advance to the championship match of the Winston-Salem Open.
Monfils, who is a big crowd favorite, fell behind early and sought the assistance of a trainer midway through the first set. The Frenchman decided to continue and went on a comeback streak, claiming six of the next seven games to even the score at 6-6 and force a tiebreaker.
The tiebreaker saw neither Monfils nor Dolgopolov jump out to an early lead. Dolgopolov earned three set point chances but was unable to capitalize on the opportunity. Monfils completed his big comeback on his second set point, winning the tiebreaker 11-9.
Taking an early lead in the second set, Monfils took a break to go up 3-1 and played great on service for the rest of the match. Dolgopolov was down 5-3, serving for his tournament life, and fell down 0-40 to give his opponent three match point opportunities. On his third chance, Monfils seized the moment with the crowd behind him to advance to the finals.
"It's really good for my confidence," said Monfils. "It's always good to be down two breaks and still win the set. I'm not so happy with the way I played today... Hopefully tomorrow I will play better and show better tennis."
Monfils' championship opponent will be Jurgen Melzer, the nine seed of the tournament.
It's always tough to play against [Melzer] because he's tricky. He's a lefty and he has great hands. He loves quick courts," said Monfils.
Querrey falls in semifinal three-setter
Sam Querrey, the last American left in the draw, lost a heartbreaking three-setter to ninth-seeded Jurgen Melzer on Center Court in front of an electric crowd. Melzer defeated Querrey by a score of 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 to advance to the finals against Gael Monfils.
Melzer got going early, breaking Querrey in his first service game to take the lead. The Austrian picked up another break to lead 5-2 and won the first set on his next service game.
Crowd favorite Querrey responded late in the second set. After the two semifinalists traded breaks, Querrey broke in the final game of the middle set to force a deciding third.
The American had a great chance early in the final set, when Melzer fell behind 15-40 on his serve. But Melzer responded with four straight points to shut the door on a break chance.
"I felt like if I could have snuck a break out at that game in the third set, maybe it could have been different," said Querrey.
Melzer continued his offensive through the third set, winning all of his service games and clinching the match by breaking Querrey for the fifth time.
The Austrian, who has four titles in his career, said that a title tomorrow would be huge.
Every title means a lot. I haven't beaten [Monfils] before so it will be a nice matchup. Hopefully I can pull it off. And it would be very good leading into the US Open," said Melzer.
He praised Monfils for his endurance on the court, but is still confident going into the final at 12:30 tomorrow.
"[Monfils] seems like sometimes he'd dead on the court and he's still running. So you never know what you get when you play him... But I'm playing well right now and I'm planning on beating him tomorrow," said Melzer.
