Sunday, March 9, 2014

Kerber out of Indian Wells

Playing a big game that included hitting 60 winners and making 72 unforced errors, Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor upset 5th seed Angelique Kerber 2-6, 7-6, 6-4 in Indian Wells yesterday. Kerber did serve for the second round match, but was unable to stop Torro-Flor from overtaking her. The German star didn't exit alone, though; countrywoman Sabine Lisicki was also defeated in the second round, by Aleksandra Wozniak. Wozniak beat Lisicki 7-5, 1-6, 7-6.

Also serving for the match but failing to win was Elina Svitolina. She and Ana Ivanvic broke each other 10 times, and many of the breaks occurred in succession in the final set. It was as if no one wanted to win. Once the third set got to a tiebreak, though, experience favored Ivanovic, and win she did, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6.

Alysa Kleybanova advanced to the third round with a win over Garbine Muguruza, and Ekaterina Makarova came back from a set and a break down to defeat Monica Niculescu. Top seed Li Na won her all-Chinese contest against Zheng Jie, and Sloane Stephens--though she got off to a slow start--brought out an impressive variety of shots to defeat Ajla Tomljanovic in straight sets. This was the Sloane worthy of all the media attention. Which Sloane will arrive to play Ivanovic in the next round?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Petra played a very good match to beat Coco. Vandeweghe served at 119mph repeatedly. That did not work as Kvitova's return was 'on', as was the rest of her game. How long will it last?... ouch... or ?

Diane said...

She plays Kuznetsova next--anything is possible.