Eugenie Bouchard, Sloane Stephens, Andrea Petkovic, Alize Cornet--all out in the first round of the Qatar Total Open. Also, two players retired during the first round--Daniela Hantuchova with a leg injury and Dominika Cibulkova with a gastrointestinal illness.
The news is especially bad for Roberta Vinci, who is having a terrible 2014 season. It isn't too good for Sloane Stephens, either. Stephens skipped Fed Cup (so did Vinci, for that matter, but her entire "A" Italian team skipped) because of injury, but was bested in straight sets by Petra Cetkovska in Doha. Vinci went out courtesy of Tsvetana Pironkova.
Hard-working Fed Cup players Klara Zakopalova and Lucie Safarova kept going, however. Traveling straight from a held-over, rain-delayed tie in Spain, the Czech players defeated Elina Svitolina and Kirsten Flipkens, respectively. Their countrywoman, Cetkovska, as noted, is into the second round, as is Petra Kvitova, who had a bye in the first.
Petra in a nailbiter over Venus. Typical Kvitova match. Won first set easily. Lost second set. Third set squandered three match points. A match point against her in the tiebreaker. Barely won it, having hit three fantastic winners in the second half of the tiebreaker. Venus served very intelligently, going to the body time and again, to her benefit. The latter part of the third set and the tiebreaker were superb from both. Good news for Petra.
ReplyDeleteWhat a thriller that was! Those two screaming (well, barking) winners in the tb were straight from "real" Petra. Great serving from Venus, who made Petra move a lot more than usual.
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