• ATP Tour

Gasquet in sparking form in Morocco first round

ESPN staff
April 6, 2010
Richard Gasquet dropped one point on his own serve against Olivier Rochus © Getty Images
Enlarge

Richard Gasquet made easy work of Belgian threat Olivier Rochus, taking just 47 minutes to reach round two of the Grand Prix Hassan II on Tuesday.

Rochus has a reputation for upsetting the big names, as he did to both Gasquet and Novak Djokovic recently in the Sony Ericsson Open, but he was completely dominated in Morocco. Five times Rochus conceded his serve as Gasquet displayed his full array of shots, sealing the match 6-1 6-1.

Incredibly, Gasquet only lost one point on his own serve in the entire contest, using that textbook backhand to dictate matters from the opening game. Rochus was equally outclassed on both his first and second serve, winning just 27 percent of the points on offer as Gasquet laid down a marker for the rest of the tournament.

Finnish dangerman Jarkko Nieminen wasted little time in wrapping things up against Mehdi Ziadi in the first round, also winning 6-1 6-1. Nieminen, who is a qualifier at the Morocco event, broke his opponent on six occasions in a hugely one-sided contest.

Eighth seed Florent Serra was made to work comparatively harder against Spaniard Santiago Ventura, progressing 6-4 6-3 after 90 minutes of tennis. Serra created 10 break points in the match, accepting half of that number.

Elsewhere, wildcard Reda El Amrani, Jan Hajek, Martin Klizan, Arnaud Clement, Andrey Golubev and Stephane Robert all made it through to round two.

At the US Clay Court Championship in Houston, seventh seed Eduardo Schwank got off to the perfect start, defeating Marcos Daniel of Brazil 6-3 6-2 to reach the second round. Schwank won 61 percent of points and broke three times to set up the victory.

Also through is Nicolas Massu, Horacio Zeballos, Juan Ignacio Chela and Ryan Sweeting.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Close

ABOUT COOKIES

To help make this website better, to improve and personalize your experience and for advertising purposes, are you happy to accept cookies and other technologies.

More Info Here Cookie Choices