PETE ZIEBRON
World #41 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez is into the 4th round at Roland Garros. Pete Ziebron Images
Thirty year-old Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez defeated American Donald Young today in 5 sets on Court 1 at Roland Garros to advance to the 4th round. Despite the fact that Garcia-Lopez was appearing in his 38th consecutive major tournament, he has not been able to reach the second week of this nor any major in his career to date prior to today.
Garcia-Lopez shocked the tennis world right out of the gate in Paris earlier this week in the first round as he thrashed Stan Wawrinka in the 3rd and 4th sets of his 4-6 7-5 6-2 6-0 first round win to open his 2014 Roland Garros campaign. Next Garcia-Lopez defeated Frenchman Adrian Mannarino in 4 sets to advance to his 3rd round match against Young.
Even though this year marked the 11th year in a row that Garcia-Lopez was playing Roland Garros, his best result to date has been a 3rd round appearance in 2011. This prior inability to advance may have resulted in Garcia-Lopez' failure to close out the match in the 4th set when he served for a spot in the 4th round at 5-4 against Young. Garcia-Lopez would drop the 4th set in a tiebreaker and eventually, the match would go the distance and Garcia-Lopez finally prevailed with a 6-2 6-4 2-6 6-7(4) 6-4 result.
After the Australian Open, Garcia-Lopez elected to play the South American clay court tournaments and left South America on a 4 match losing streak heading into Miami. However, in Miami, he defeated Gael Monfils 6-2 7-5 in the 2nd round. Garcia-Lopez will face Monfils in his next match in the 4th round opponent at Roland Garros.
Following Miami, Garcia-Lopez won the 250 level tournament in Casablanca and parlayed that result with a very impressive showing at the Masters 1000 in Monte Carlo where he defeated Alexandr Dogopolov and Tomas Berdych in the 2nd and 3rd rounds respectively before falling to Novak Djokovic in 3 sets in the 4th round.
After the loss to Djokovic, Garcia-Lopez lost 2 of his next 3 matches in Oerias, Portugal and Madrid. Thus, although he had 8 clay court tournaments under his belt this year, it came as a bit of a surprise to most of the sporting world when he defeated Wawrinka in the 1st round. Garcia-Lopez entered Roland Garros with a ranking of #41 in the world, while the world #3 Wawrinka came into the French Open with confidence as he backed up his Australian Open title with a victory over Roger Federer in the final at the Monte Carlo Masters 1000 in April on clay.
Next up at Roland Garros for Guillermo Garca-Lopez will be Frenchman Gael Monfils, who managed to defeat Fabio Fognini in 5 sets today. Monfils, a former semifinalist at Roland Garros in 2008, may not come into the match at 100% physically, however he will have a roaring French crowd to support him in his efforts. Garcia-Lopez will seek to continue to advance further than he has ever ventured in a major tournament in his career.
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