Kyle Edmund was the early winner on day 2 of the Millennium BCP Open in Estoril, defeating Daniel Gimeno-Traver, the veteran Spaniard, 6-3 7-5 to move into the second round.
It was an uneven performance from both players as evidenced in the swings of the match. Edmund raced out to a 5-0 lead in the first set, but was broken when serving for the set. He eventually closed out the set 6-3 but this was in the middle of a run of 6 games in 7 for the Spaniard. Then from 4-1 down in the second, Edmund won 6 of the last 7 to close out victory in 1 hour and 28 minutes.
That Edmund was able to win the first set reasonably comfortably, despite serving at 31%, is a measure of the 10 unforced errors from Gimeno-Traver, compared to just 6 for the Brit. Edmund had to save break point in the first game of the match when he could land just 2 out of 8 first serves, but his ground game helped him out. He broke the Spaniard in the second game with a scorching cross-court backhand pass, and went to 5-0 with a wonderfully wrong-footing backhand slice down the line. So far, so good, but his serve remained a liability. Coupled with Gimeno-Traver getting up onto the baseline with his forehand and cutting out unforced errors, the momentum of the match subtly changed.
As a result, it was little surprise to see Gimeno-Traver break at the start of the second set as he started to dictate with his forehand. But when Edmund’s forehand started to go walkabout, he had to save a second break point to avoid going down 5-1 in the second set. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one of your major weapons (his serve) may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose a second (his forehand) looks like carelessness. And in the end his forehand was the source of his illness and his cure. A forehand winner helped him break back for 3-4; a series of unforced errors gave up the break for 3-5; back again and it was 4-5. The decisive moment of the set occurred at 30-30 in the eleventh game when Gimeno-Traver put an easy smash into the net. Edmund broke and served out the match 7-5.
There will be parts of his game to work on but Edmund will draw some comfort from his victory in straight sets against a long-time clay court specialist. This was Edmund’s second win against Gimeno-Traver: the first came almost four years ago in the first round of qualifying for Wimbledon, when Edmund was ranked 1,309 and the Spaniard was ranked 103. Edmund has come a long way since then, and if he can get a few things right after today’s performance, he may yet go far in this tournament.
Edmund leads the head to head with Benoit Paire, his next opponent, having defeated him in the Le Gosier Challenger tournament in Guadeloupe’s hard courts last year.
