Rare wins for Kratochvil and Rosset

Switzerland's Marc Rosset and Michel Kratochvil both enjoyed much-needed wins on Tuesday at the ATP tennis tournament in Barcelona.

Rosset won his first tennis match in more than two months after coming from behind to beat Croatia’s Ivan Ljubicic 5-7, 7-6, 6-3. Kratochvil, meanwhile, ended a similar run of defeats with a straight sets victory over Argentina’s Gaston Gaudio.

The Argentinian world number 36 was seeded 12th for the one million dollar Spanish tournament, but presented few difficulties to the Swiss number three who won through 6-0, 6-3.

With Gaudio playing on his favourite clay surface and apparently in good form, having reached the quarter-finals at Key Biscayne last month, Kratochvil’s triumph was all the more unexpected.

It was his first win on the ATP singles tour since beating Italy’s Davide Sanguinetti in the opening round of February’s San Jose tournament. Tuesday’s victory has also slightly improved the Swiss player’s win-loss ratio for this season to 6-8.

Rosset must also have been wondering where his next win was coming from after suffering a string of defeats going all the way back to February 15. But Tuesday’s hard-fought win over Ljubicic has helped to lift the pressure on the Genevan, who will now be hoping to win twice in a row for the first time this season.

A five-game winning sequence in the middle of his match against the Croatian world number 71 was instrumental in Rosset’s victory, helping him to clinch the second set and take 3-0 lead in the third.

swissinfo with agencies