BY GIOVANNI VIANELLO
It was a case of so near, but so far for Germany’s Dustin Brown and Great Britain’s Kyle Edmund at the Miami Open.
Brown’s Miami bid was ended by America’s Donald Young 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Meanwhile, Edmund went out 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, to Jared Donaldson.
During the Young-Brown encounter, the first set was quite balanced with only one break of serve (in the advantage of Young) with the score being 3-2 for the American. The set was hugely oriented by serve, mainly due to Brown’s attitude of making risky returns which often go out and his lethal serve, even if the German often commits double faults.
The second set sees Young losing focus after just two games, and not regaining his composure until the end of the set, which ends 6-1 for Brown. Suffering the second set hammering, Young halted the proceedings to receive a medical time out on his back.
In the decider, though, Young recovered and secured an early lead of a break with the match ending 6-3 1-6 6-2 in his favour.
The match was a big contrast of game-play style, with Brown playing very risky shots (he also played a volley-tweener once), whilst Young showed his usual consistency. Young’s reward is a showdown against Lucas Pouille in the second round.
It was an even worse Miami experience for next generation star Edmund, who lead his match 6-2, 5-3. What looked like an easy match for the Βritish NextGen Kyle Edmund turned out into a roller-coaster match which was won by Donaldson.
In the first set, Edmund eased past Donaldson thanks to his serve and forehand, breaking him twice, in the second and in the eighth game.
Then the British player secured another break of serve in the second, and kept the advantage until 5-3, when he served for the match. At this point, the Brit went down 15-40 and then lost the serve. The match began to be a thriller with each player started to play at his best, but Donaldson was displaying a better defense in the match. The set finished in the tie-break, which was won by Donaldson by 7-4.
The third set saw the Briton going down in mood and in performance, getting broken twice, with the second one occurring in the eighth and deciding game. Before that, Edmund had had an opportunity to recover the match, when trailing 2-4 but being up 0-30 on Donaldson’s serve.
The match mainly saw a battle of serving and forehand, and in the end it was Donaldson, who prevailed thanks to his better mental attitude and his better defense.pko,pklm,kkk
