WTA Dubai: Cibulkova, Garcia and Kenin reach R2. Mertens and Vekic bow out
Carla Suarez Navarro has made a promising start at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, defeating Barbora Strycova 6-1, 6-3 in an hour and 14 minutes. The Spaniard did lose her serve twice although Strycova needed much more to stay on the positive side of the scoreboard after struggling on serve big time, getting broke three times in a row in both sets to send Carla over the finish line. Shuai Zhang ousted the 15th seed Anett Kontaveit 7-6, 6-3 in an hour and 44 minutes, serving just above 50% but delivering better performance on the both the first and second serve to prevail in straight sets after five breaks she scored.
The match kicked off with four breaks of serve in the opening five games and Shuai saved two set points on serve at 4-5, breaking Kontaveit in the next game before losing serve again to set up a tie break that she won 7-3 for a big lead. The rivals traded breaks early in set number two and Zhang grabbed another one at 4-3, sealing the deal with a good hold in the following game for the place in the second round. Ons Jabeur took down Donna Vekic 6-4, 7-6 after almost two hours of play, defeating the Croat for the first time since Linz 2014.
Jabeur won just two points more than the young Croat and she prevailed with four breaks on her tally, losing serve three times and fending off three set points in the second set tie break to wrap up the triumph and avoid spending more time on the court. Just two days after winning the title in Doha, the 16th seed Elise Mertens was on the court again and she lost a marathon match to Lin Zhu who prevailed 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 in two hours and 58 minutes of grueling tennis that offered 34 break chances! Mertens won two points more than her opponent but not the most important ones obviously, getting broken nine times and responding with "only" eight good return games to hit the exit door.
Trailing 5-3 in the opener, the Belgian rattled off four straight games to grab the opener 7-5, looking good to perform a great miracle in set number two since Zhu led 5-1 before Elise reduce the gap to 4-5, only, to suffer a break in game ten that kept the Chinese in contention. Mertens led 3-1 in the decider although it wasn' to be for her, losing serve in games six and 12 to push Lin over the finish line and get some well-deserved rest. Alison Riske defeated the 13th seed Julia Goerges 6-4, 7-5, with the German serving at only 43% and six breaks she suffered from 12 opportunities given to the American.
The upcoming young star Sofia Kenin toppled Mihaela Buzarnescu 6-3, 6-0 in 71 minutes, saving both break points she faced and winning more than half of the points on the return to march into the second round. Another American Jennifer Brady defeated struggling Jelena Ostapenko 6-4, 6-0 to join the second round action together with the 14th seed Caroline Garcia who stayed on the court for only 62 minutes in a 6-2, 6-0 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Caroline lost her serve once and she was all over the Russian in the return games, taking 65% of the return points and securing six breaks from eight chances.
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2InVDOE
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