Peter Foley/European Pressphoto AgencyGuillermo Garcia-Lopez hitting a return to Juan Monaco on Tuesday.Guillermo García-López looked on his way to pulling off one of the biggest comebacks and upsets so far at the 2012 United States Open, reeling off the third and fourth sets and leading No. 10 Juan Monaco, 5-3, in the fifth at a boisterous Grandstand court.
But Monaco escaped, racing out to a 15-40 lead and eventually breaking after one deuce.
“It’s 5-3 in the fifth, and you know, you have to close the match with the serve, and you feel a little bit nervous,” García-López acknowledged. “I finished normal, but he plays amazing points. I think I didn’t play bad, this game, and I was thinking that I could continue like I was playing before.”
He did, forcing the match into a fifth-set tiebreak and assertively winning it 7-3 to close out an improbable 3-6, 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (3) victory.
“Once you get in the tiebreak, sometimes it’s a lottery,” García-López said. “But I think I was playing more offensive than him at the end.”
“Amazing, no?” he said of the win. “Amazing feeling because I think it is the first time I won a match like this, two sets to none. Amazing feeling.”
García-López, currently No. 68 in the ATP, pulled off a major upset win over Andy Murray at Indian Wells but otherwise has performed roughly to his ranking.
“Well, sometimes it’s going good, sometimes it’s going bad, you know,” he said, waving his finger in a roller-coaster motion. ”A little bit up and down. But, you know, I have to try at always the same level.”