Back in the Saddle - USA Futures #5

At the Racquet Club of Irvine for this week's $10k Futures event, Greg's first match was the doubles, this time back with Greg Ouellette. Against the inexperienced pairing of Skyler Butts from Hong Kong and Warren Wood of the USA, the Greg's did not have things all their way but still got the job done with one break advantage in the first set and two in the second, to win 6-4, 6-2.
In his first round singles match Greg, seeded No.7, was up against 22 year old Cuban Randy Blanco, ranked 1744, who had just the previous year defected from Cuba, whilst playing in a Davis Cup tie in Central America. He and a team-mate skipped away from the team and flew to Miami to defect. A brave move by a young person.
In the match Blanco got off to a slow and erratic start, and Greg capitalised, dominating the first set, breaking Blanco three times to deliver a "bagel" first set score-line of 6-0. Blanco was not down though and came out swinging in the second set. Unfortunately Greg let him back into the match, swopping breaks of serve with Blanco twice in the set and eventually getting to the tie-break at 6-6. 

Cuban Randy Blanco

Greg could not have been happy when Blanco wrested the tie-break away, winning it 7-4 and the second set 7-6, levelling the match at one set all.
In the third set, with Greg serving first, it was Greg who got the decisive break, getting to 4-2 up. Blanco tried to fight back, saving break point in his next game, to get to 4-3, then forcing Greg to deuce in his next service game, but Greg held firm. Then, at 5-3 up, Greg brought up match point on Blanco's serve, converting to win the set 6-3 and a longer than necessary match 6-0, 6-7(4), 6-3.
In the end a win for Greg but he will not be happy with the score-line or the fact that he served just 2 aces and 8 double faults. He did manufacture 20 break point opportunities but converted only 6 of those break points.
The Greg's still had a tough doubles match to play, as the last match of the day, up against the No. 4 seeds Dennis Nevolo and Ecudorian Sebastian Rivera. It was a good result for Greg, both playing well in posting a solid 63 62 win, to advance to the semi-finals. Also Greg said that his shoulder felt good throughout both matches and a small leg injury he had been carrying was well on the road to repair.