Stepanek Makes His Own Luck, Beats Gonzalez

© Mike BazFernando Gonzalez, coming back from a knee injury, makes his first tournament appearance since Roland Garros.

He came into Pilot Pen Tennis as a lucky loser, but Radek Stepanek today powered into the third round with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Fernando Gonzalez, who played his first match since Roland Garros.
 
Stepanek, 30, broke serve four times and saved four of five break points on his own serve to claim his fourth win in five career meetings against the hard-hitting Chilean.

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Stepanek came into the tournament having not won an ATP World Tour tournament match since Memphis in November.  That had been his only tournament match win since the first week of the season, when he pushed Andy Roddick to two tie-breaks in the Brisbane final.

He lost to Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili in the final round of qualifying at the weekend. But after coming into the main draw as a lucky loser when Mardy Fish pulled out, Stepanek clipped Pablo Cuevas 6-0, 6-4 in the first round to set up his meeting with Gonzalez.

The Czech next meets 16th-seeded Romanian Victor Hanescu, who defeated German Daniel Brands 6-3, 6-4.

Gonzalez, who recently celebrated his 30th birthday, was sidelined for nearly three months due to a knee injury.

Gabashvili joined Stepanek in the third round, leading 11th-seeded Belgian Xavier Malisse 4-2 when his opponent retired with a left foot injury.

The 98th-ranked Russian, who upset World No. 8 Andy Roddick at Roland Garros a few months ago, will attempt to reach his first ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season when he next confronts No. 5 seed Andrey Golubev, a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 winner over Argentine Maximo Gonzalez.

Eighth-seeded German Florian Mayer needed just 51 minutes to get by Czech Jan Hajek, 6-3, 6-1, while his next opponent, Dutch No. 12 seed Thiemo de Bakker, prevailed against Kazakhstani qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin 6-1, 6-7(6), 6-4 in two hours and 27 minutes.

Slovakian Lukas Lacko knocked out another top player Tuesday in New Haven, as he stepped up to defeat No. 2 seed Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-0. Lacko saved all five break points faced on serve, while capitalising on four of his five chances.