Kuala Lumpur praises Marcos Baghdatis's 200th ATP match win

Marcos Baghdatis got past Alex Bogomolov to record victory number 200 as Dimitry Tursunov beat Paul Capdeville at the 2011 Malaysian Open being held in Kuala Lumpur.

Wild card Marcos Baghdatis from Cyprus attained his 200th match win on Monday at the Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur 2011, by beating sixth-seeded Alex Bogomolov Jr. from the USA 7-6(3), 6-4 in 1 hour and 46 minutes.

Baghdatis agreed, “You don’t think about it. It is the first round so you just go in and try your best. Alex played well tonight so I had to up my game a little. It was very even, but I managed to get that little bit of an edge over him.”

Baghdatis converted one of his three break chances and won 72 per cent of his service points with a little help from his well placed six aces. It was his 22nd match win of the year. Baghdatis surrendered to Mikhail Youzhny in the quarter-finals last year.

Seventh seeded Dmitry Tursunov had to battle it out with Paul Capdeville of Chile to reach a 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 win in 135 minutes, during the evening session. Tursunov could convert just four out of 14 break point opportunities.

The Russian now faces young David Goffin from Belgium, who went past fellow wild card Matthew Ebden 6-4, 7-6(4) in jsut over one and a half hours.

Goffin said, “He was aggressive from the start of the second set and I wasn’t feeling very good in my stomach, so I am very happy to come back into the match at 5-3 and I served really well in the tie-break. This tournament is a bonus for me as I got a wild card entry, so it is great to be in the second round. I have nothing to lose so I will play my best.”