Baghdatis victorious in Buenos Aires

Marcos Baghdatis made a winning start at the Copa Peugeot Argentina de Tenis at the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain 6-3, 6-4 early yesterday morning.

After a long rain delay Baghdatis displayed tennis that reminded of the days when he reached the Australian Open final to beat the Spaniard in straight sets and eliminate him from the exhibition tournament as he also lost his first match of the event to the local start David Nalbandian on Friday.

Baghdatis had been due to face Nalbandian early this morning in the second match of Group B, but the 2002 Wimbledon runner-up was forced to withdraw from the six-player tournament due to tendonitis in his right knee.

Nalbandian has been replaced by the Brazilian number one Thomaz Bellucci and he will be Baghdatis’ next opponent. Should the Limassol native win he would then progress to the final where he would take on the winner of Group A, which will either be Frenchman Gael Monfils or Argentinean Eduardo Schwank who both beat Fernando Gonzalez and will meet each other in the ultimate match of the group.  

Baghdatis looks to be in a very good form and he is set to officially start the 2012 season at the Brisbane International, before completing his Australian Open preparations at the Apia International Sydney. The Cypriot commences the calendar year ranked 44th at the ATP South African Airways Rankings, with his best result in 2010 being the final of the Kuala Lumpur event where he lost to Serbian Janko Tipsarevic.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.