Young And Lu Face-Off In Miami First Round

American Donald Young will face Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei tomorrow in the first round of the Miami Masters. The former has qualified for the competition on five previous occasions but has only once ever made it past this opening stage. That relative success came about last year when beating Carlos Berlocq 6-2, 6-2. In the second round, Young would beat his compatriot John Isner by a tie-break in the first set but would lose the second and third 6-3, 6-4 respectively.

Lu, who has qualified for the first stage of the tournament seven times, has reached the second stage on six of these occasions. Last year he exited at this second round stage, defeating Kazakhstan`s Mikhail Kukushkin through his opponent`s retirement (6-1, 3-1) in his opening match before losing out to lucky loser Dusan Lajovic. Lu managed to take the second set on a tie-break following his defeat in the first, only picking up one game. In the final set he folded, losing out by six games to three.

Despite his rival`s better competition record, Donald Young is the favourite to enter the second round on home soil. The 25-year-old, who is ranked 18 places better than Lu in the world rankings, is available at 8/15 with betfair to progress through to the next round for the first time by any means. The representative of Chinese Taipei, who is six years Young`s senior, can be backed at odds of 17/10 (Betvictor) to do the business in tomorrow`s encounter.

The two men have met on two previous occasions, the first in the first round of the 2012 Thailand Open and the second in qualifying for Mexico`s Leon challenger tournament of 2013. Young has beaten Lu both times. In Bangkok he came back from losing the opening set 7-5 to seal the second set by only dropping two games. In the third, he would be on the right end of a 7-5 victory. william hill are offering odds of 24/5 on Young losing the first set but going on to win the entire match whilst ladbrokes` 10/3 says the American will win the match by two sets to one once again.

Young would go on to lose out to Fernando Verdasco in the second round in Bangkok whilst Lu would win the doubles tournament with Thailand`s own Danai Udomchoke. They would defeat Eric Butorac and Australia`s Paul Hanley 6-3, 6-4 in the final.

In Mexico, Young would take down Lu in straight sets, securing the first by six games to three before taking the second 6-4. Both paddy Power and william hill have 5/4 on a Young victory in straight sets. Neither player would make it through to the first round of the challenger competition.

This year Young`s best finish was when reaching the final of the Delray Beach tournament in his home country. The 25-year-old would see off 24 rank Alexandr Dolgopolov (2-6, 6-3, 6-4) in the quarter-final before beating Bernard Tomic in the semis (4-6, 6-4, 6-2) and losing out to Ivo Karlovic in straight sets in the final. That match would end 6-3, 6-3. Lu has had nothing like this success this year, his best finish being recorded when exiting in a pair of quarter-finals. The 5`11" player lost out to 15 rank Roberto Bautista Agut in the quarter-finals (6-7, 4-6) of the Chennai Open, Lu`s first tournament of the year. This would precede his quarter-final finish in the Delray Beach competition.

Lu would take the first set against Adrian Mannarino by six games to three but would only pick up two games in the remaining sets (1-6, 1-6).

Ladbrokes have 4/6 on Lu winning a set tomorrow.

Go To bet365

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24/03/2015     © Frixo 2024