Ferrer's Quiet Journey by Paul Gough Friday, 20 January, 2006 http://0rz.net/e90ZV The temperatures might have been in the mid 30s with a howling, hot, northerly breeze on Day Five at Melbourne Park but Spanish No.11 seed David Ferrer was not exactly complaining after revelling in the tricky conditions to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam event for only the second time. The 23-year-old, who despite being seeded so high is still not one of the more recognisable faces amongst Australian tennis fans, adapted far better to the tough conditions than his opponent - No.18 seed Mario Ancic - to move into the round of 16 at the Australian Open 2006. Ancic, one of the best servers on the tour who is best remembered for beating Britain's Tim Henman on the way to reaching the 2004 Wimbledon semi-finals, was just unable to unleash his favourite weapon as the much more compact game of the smaller Ferrer prevailed in a comfortable 6-3 6-3 6-3 victory in just under two hours. Ferrer, who reached the quarter finals of the 2005 French Open in the only other time he has progressed past the third round of a Grand Slam event since debuting in 2003, admitted afterwards the tough conditions had played a big role in his victory. "The wind was helping me a lot more than it was helping him (Ancic)," Ferrer said. "The wind was moving the ball a lot and making it difficult for him to do his flat serve." This was shown in the fact the normally prolific Ancic could only serve three aces for the match and won only 54 percent of points on his usual booming first serve. Ancic also served five double faults to only two from Ferrer and while the Spaniard was only down four break points for the match, Ancic was down a total of 13 - six of which Ferrer converted into breaks of serve. The victory continued Ferrer's dramatic rise in recent years, cutting his ranking from 71 in 2003 to his current ranking of 14. And Ferrer - who ended last year as the second highest ranked Spaniard behind world No.2 Rafael Nadal - has also shown he is an all-court player. As well as reaching the quarter-finals of the French last year on his preferred clay, he also reached the semi-finals on hard court at the Masters' Series event in Miami as well as reaching the quarter-finals at two other Masters' Series events on different surfaces - at Madrid on an indoor hard surface and at Paris on indoor carpet. However Ferrer says he is also fast developing an affinity for Melbourne Park's Rebound Ace surface. "I feel comfortable playing on this court," he said. Ferrer puts down his huge improvement in the past two years to simply being more mature. "Every year I have matured more and I know a lot more about my game now, I'm mentally stronger and I respect my opponents more," he said. Ferrer, a huge soccer fan who follows Barcelona, now faces France's 33-year-old veteran Fabrice Santoro for a place in the quarter-finals after Santoro outlasted No.8 seed Gaston Gaudio, in an epic match that lasted just under four hours in oppressive heat on Vodafone Arena, 6-3 6-2 5-7 1-6 6-4. 加油:))))) --

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