Argentina’s tennis stars suffered a tough day in European competition, as Juan Mónaco and Leonardo Mayer were both knocked out of their respective tournaments at the second round stage.
‘Pico’, 30, went down today to Russian Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 7-6, bowing out of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow. The world No. 70 matched the home favourite throughout, but could not find a breakthrough and lost after one hour, 43 minutes of play.
Mónaco has only managed to beat Youzhny once in five clashes between the pair, in Hamburg back in 2009.
Mayer, meanwhile, was bundled out of the Stockholm Open in a surprise loss to German Matthias Bachinger, sending the Corrientes native home and ensuring that, after Carlos Berlocq’s defeat yesterday, Argentine interest in this week’s ATP events would come to an end.
Despite being ranked more than 175 places above his rival, at 203, Mayer (25th in the world) had no answer for Bachinger’s play as he lost the first set on a tie-break.
The Argentine fought back to win the second set, but was blown away to go down 7-6, 6-7, 6-3. The defeat represents a disappointing start to Mayer’s reign as Argentina’s No. 1, a title he has held since Monday due to the inactivity of Juan Martín Del Potro (29).
buenosairesherald.com