Romanian qualifier Marius Copil has stunned third seed Gilles Simon with a convincing 7-5 6-3 second-round victory on Show Court 1 today, in what was Simon’s first match of the season.
Receiving a first-round bye, Simon had little time to work off any rust against the relatively unknown 23-year-old, who was rocketing serves into the back wall at over 220 km/h in his first few service games.
The world No.147 hit 31 aces in his epic first-round win over Japan’s Yuichi Sugita –finishing 7-6(5) 6-7(2) 7-6(7) – and backed up with another 10 today against Simon.
The Frenchman, currently ranked world No.19, is a typically good returner and managed to stick with the Romanian throughout the first set, but failed to convert all four break-point opportunities.
After Copil got the break at 6-5 in the first set, the Simon serve wasn’t up to scratch, dropping to 35 per cent of first serves in the second set as the Romanian raced away to a breakthrough quarterfinal berth.
Copil will now play the winner of the match between sixth seed Feliciano Lopez and Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt for a spot in the semifinal.