Update 2:30 pm. Second seed Gilles Simon is showing dangerous form and is yet to drop a set in this year’s Brisbane International. Today he ended the dream debut of Australian youngster James Duckworth in a straight-sets win to secure his spot in the quarterfinals.
The 19-year-old Australian—ranked 263 places behind the No.12 world ranked Simon—threw everything at the Frenchman, forcing him to execute winners. But the classy Simon was up to the challenge, breaking early in the first set and getting the crucial break in the second to race to a 6-3 7-5 win.
Calling any win a good win, Simon was happy to get past the Australian—who beat Simon’s doubles partner Nicolas Mahut in round one—and was complimentary about Duckworth’s future in the game.
“It’s not easy to know what you have to do on the court. Sometimes you just want to put the ball inside the court and wait for the mistakes and sometimes he hit three winners in a row and you say ‘ah maybe I should play faster’, so yes I think he can play very good tennis,” Simon said.
“He’s really not consistent at the moment and he’s already hard to defeat, so if he gets better and more consistent he will be a very good player.”
For Duckworth, competing in his first ATP main draw event, the highest ranked player he’d played before was 130, and he’s confident that making this second round is a major step in his early career, relishing the chance in front of a home crowd.
“It gives me a lot of confidence knowing that I can match it with the best guys in the world. I’ll go back and I’ll work on a few things before Aussie and before Sydney hopefully I can play better there,” Duckworth said.
“It was great. I was pestering [Tournament Director] Cam [Pearson] all day yesterday to throw me on centre, so I was really excited to get on there … It was a great experience and something I’ll remember forever.”
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Simon was out to prove his rank early, kicking off the match with two booming aces before following up with two winners off his backhand—his danger shot— that rocketed him to a 3-0 lead after just 10 minutes of play.
With seven break-point opportunities to Duckworth’s none, Simon broke the Australian in the first game of the second set, but Duckworth refused to lie down for his much more experienced opponent, breaking back with an impressive forehand return winner for 2-2.
The Frenchman was the clear connoisseur from the baseline but he didn’t have it all his own way, with Duckworth mixing up his shots and playing aggressive tennis to keep the scores level. It took a lucky net cord for Simon to give him the critical break point at 5-5 in the second set, before serving out the match 7-5.
“I felt that I was better than him from the baseline, so I really wanted to engage the point every time, but he put some pressure also sometimes on my second serve, so it was sometimes doing something very good and then something very bad right after and I never knew what to do exactly,” Simon said.
After just two weeks off the Frenchman, said he doesn’t feel like he has had much of a break.
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Simon said playing the first tournament of the season is always a challenge, but after two straight-sets wins he’s confident with his early form.
“It takes a little bit of time with the time difference, the sun and everything to play my best tennis, but I feel good,” he said.
Kicking off the new season, Simon knows the stakes are high for every player in the tournament and the No.2 seed is keeping close tabs on everyone’s form.
“The first tournament is funny, because it’s not that important, but to everybody it’s very important because you practice, it’s a new season, everybody wants to win it, is ready for it, so you can see that there is high motivation for everybody,” he said.
“There is no injuries, no player tired, everybody is playing his best tennis, so it’s going to be hard every time.”
Simon waits in the quarterfinals for the winner of German Philipp Petzschner and Colombian Santiago Giraldo, who beat Simon in the first round of Brisbane last year.