pic: yay
pic: chasing down the ball
pic: serve
pic: pumped
pic: return
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Ferrero Wears Down Chela in Battle of Clay Courters
Juan Carlos Ferrero and Juan Ignacio Chela, two Spanish speakers with three names apiece and a shared predilection for red-dirt tennis, faced each other in a match that looked an awful lot like a clay-court contest. Ferrero won in straight sets after a long rain delay turned their day match into a night encounter on Armstrong Stadium, 7-5, 7-5, 6-1.
The two players moved each other around the court with similar heavy, topspin groundstrokes off both wings and occasional feathery drop shots. Unlike his compatriots, Ferrero, the No. 3 seed and current French Open champion from Spain, grew up playing on asphalt, and ultimately his shots had more weight behind them.
In the first set, Ferrero broke the Argentine's serve with a classic clay-court play, moving Chela side-to-side by running around his backhand and hitting huge topspin forehands; he finished the point off by angling a sweet little drop shot to go up 4-3. Ferrero served for the set at 5-4, but he was broken on a sneaky Chela topspin lob that grazed the baseline. But the Spaniard broke right back and then held serve at love.
In the second set, Ferrero went up two breaks but surrendered them both, allowing Chela to equal the score at 5-5 and then broke again and finished the set 7-5. More typical of a clay court match, where the serve plays less of a role, the second set featured nine service breaks.
Chela ran out of gas in the third, and Ferrero smoked him, 6-1, but not before getting onto the highlight reel with a spectacular circus shot, a between-the-legs passing shot after running down a lob.
Ferrero, who hits a more muscular ball than his nickname "Mosquito" would indicate, is one of the few clay-court specialists with a real opportunity to go deep in the draw. He will meet the veteran American Todd Martin in the 4th Round.
