Monday, January 18, 2010

Wickmayer squeaks past Dulgheru

Some time after I wrote my 2009 summary, I realized--with regret--that I'd forgotten to mention Alexandra Dulgheru. Dulgheru won Warsaw, her very first tournament on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, beating Sara Errani, Daniela Hantuchova and Alona Bondarenko. After pulling off this highly unusual feat, she won only one more match. One imagines it was too much too soon.

She came close, on Monday, to winning a big one. Dulgheru's Australian Open first round match against would-be 16th seed (but in reality, qualifier) Yanina Wickmayer was interrupted more than once by rain. I saw very little of it, but the stats indicate that it wasn't something we'll be seeing on TV in the future. Wickmayer wound up with 80 unforced errors and 26 winners, and Dulgheru's results weren't that much better.

In the next round, Wickymayer will play either world number 12 Flavia Pennetta or former world number 6 Anna Chakvetadze. She will need to clean up her game quite a bit if she plans to compete.

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