Luis "Lucho" Horna lays the smackdown on Richard Gasquet 6-4 6-1 in Rome

Normally I don't write about individual matches, but there always good times to do something different.

Lucho Horna who is currently ranked outside the top 100, this is not a true reflection of his ability and talent. It's more a combination of his injury problems and also inconsistency, coming from a lack of practice to get his game going. The one season he didn't have injuries he finished in the top 40. The game is definitely there, but more about Lucho as I plan to do a write up on him at a later date.

Horna qualified defeated Max Mirnyi and Mischa Zverev, on paper they should be easy matches for a player like Horna at home on the clay, both of them presented tough challenges,. Rule number 1 in tennis, it's about match ups and most people forget this, though not the readers of this blog, these guys have games that explot Lucho's main problem the return of serve, but he came through this and drew Gasquet in the 1st round.

When I saw this draw, I thought there were good possibilities of a Horna win, due to the fact that as a qualifier, he is used to the conditions and that counts in the TMS events and also it's advantageous for the qualifiers to be playing on the Monday. This plus his aggressive game when on, can be very effective, using the heavy serve to open the court up.

The match started out fairly even, both were playing well off their service games and could hardly get a look at a break for the first 6 games, then at 30-30 on Gasquet's serve, then things changed for the better in concern to Horna's chances of winning this match. Gasquet served 2 double faults and Horna was there to capitalise for the break at 4-3. Horna continued serving well, getting a high percentage of serves in and then backing it up with solid groundstrokes, keeping good length in the heavy conditions and was winning the majority of baseline exchanges. There was a slight hiccup at 30-30 when Lucho served the set out 6-4.

Horna kept his level of play up and Gasquet afte Lucho broke his first game, it looked like he mentally checked out of the match and had his mind on other things besides tennis. Horna was mentally strong enough to close the door on any hopes of a comeback and finish off a disheartened Gasquet very quickly in the 2nd set. The Italians weren't very happy at all and being the expressive people they are, they let Gasquet know what they thought of his efforts which met with some boos and jeers for a lack of mental toughness in the 2nd set.

Lucho now has the excellent record of 9 wins against Top 10 players, considering where he has been ranked for his career. The list below is of his 9 victims and the Grand Slam ones are bolded,

1. Gasquet - Rome 2008 (10)
2. Nalbandian - Buenos Aires 2007 (10)
3. Ljubicic - Portschach 2007 (7)
4. Robredo - Båstad 2007 (8)
5. Gaudio - Acapulco 2006 (8)
6. Henman - Roland Garros 2005 (8)
7. Coria - Toronto 2004 (3)
8. Federer - Roland Garros 2003 (5)
9. Ferrero - Sopot 2003 (2)

The "Peruvian Pearl", will now play either his good friend Chucho Acasuso or Dmitry Tursunov for a place in the 3rd round, Acasuso is still looking for his confidence that is somewhere in Miami and Tursunov is just there for the food, the opportunity is there, but it has to be taken and this is not an area where Horna has excelled in following through after big wins.