Martín Landaluce ended up falling in the Wimbledon Junior semifinal when he succumbed to American Michael Zheng 3-6, 6-3, 6-7(7) in two and a half hours. Pedro Ródenas was also eliminated in this round.
Court No.18 of the All England Tennis Club lit up one of the duels that would lead to the final of the third Grand Slam of the season. The Spaniard was the man to beat on the Junior circuit as he was on a roll and being able to tour on grass close to perfection. In these stakes, however, the emotional phase also tends to capitulate quite a bit as it was the first time that these two tennis players were so close to making themselves known to the world of tennis inside the cathedral.
The first for Zheng
Landaluce got off to a successful start by getting an immediate break that looked like it would help his strength to hold on. However, the opposite happened. There were several doubts in his person and the American was improving his performance. He entered the court more, saw how many errors came from his opponent and little by little he was dominating with his strong blow, which is the right hand, in addition to the fact that with the service he found himself firm. He chained two breaks in a row that earned him not only to tie but to take the lead in the match. He held her and managed to close the set with his serve.
They improve the sensations
After the 33 minutes that the first set lasted, the man from Madrid went through the changing rooms. As before, he managed to break ahead after prevailing over the difficult opening moments of a set. He confirmed that difference, and the sensations were much better. He was making Michael play much more, who did not have such facilities with his forehand shot, but even though they were competitive games, the American rescued his serve and therefore continued to be close in the electronics. Martín had no problem and when it was 5-3, he took the partial after a blank game.
It’s time to go back and go through moments of trouble
The third set was full of emotions. The No.10 seed in the draw, wanted to push in search of the inertia that he brought. The American, however, being able to take that game forward gave him a break to be able to present his dispute options again. It was on two occasions when he was placed with a break ahead, and Martín doing a great psychological job since in the last dates he was not seeing this type of results, he turned it around twice and stood 4-4 .
He had three break balls, but interspersed winners with errors, and also good services from Zheng where he saved one of them through a direct serve, the American went to change sides to be able to subtract to win the game.
Despite starting with doubts that complicated, he managed to solve it. The level of tennis was still high, and the American took the lead 40-0 at 5-5. Martín, however, was adding point to point and forced him to reconsider what happened. He lowered pressure, the American performed very well and the Spaniard looked in the same position as a few minutes before. It was complicated since Michael was placed 0-30 and that last point being of a high level and tough exchanges. Landaluce, once again showed a very positive mentality and being the one who had the offensive tone, he ended up taking it by forcing the super tie-break.
all to be decided
The American started ahead, the Spaniard equalized but when they got to 5-5, he made two errors at the net, giving up his serve and then trying to recover it. Everything was happening because of Martín who was making mistakes and saw how the rival went to 8-5, but reduced differences with two winners until 8-7. Nevertheless, Landaluce had to say goodbye to Wimbledon with two more errors against Zheng in a high-level outcome. Enormous weeks that the 16-year-old player who is a pupil of Óscar Burrieza has lent.
