2011 Cellular South Cup: Keothavong ousts Wozniak
British tennis pro, Anne Keothavong, defeated Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada in straight sets 6-2, 6-2, in her first match at the 2011 Cellular South Cup in Memphis.
It took Keothavong less than an hour to defeat Wozniak, who is currently world number 137.
The British player’s ranking already gave her a significant advantage in the match. She is number 90 on the Women’s Tennis Association [WTA] charts these days, and this gives her an edge of over fifty spots.
In addition to this, she has defeated Wozniak once before in the only meeting they have had prior to this.
Keothavong was almost completely in control of the match, and did not give Wozniak many opportunities to break through. She fired her first ace in the opening set, and challenged Wozniak to two break points, which the Canadian was unable to fight off.
The two players played four return and service games in the first set, and Keothavong won 62 percent of the total points in the match. Wozniak could not score any break points against her opponent.
The second set was, to some extent, a repeat of the first one. Keothavong fired two aces in the match, and the same number of return and service games were played as in the first set.
This time, Wozniak made an effort to take control by converting one of three break points successfully. However, Keothavong rose to the challenge and served Wozniak with five break points. The Canadian saved two of these, but could not fight off the other
three. Keothavong won 60 percent of the points in the second set, and won the match 6-2, 6-2.
The British player is 27 years old, almost four years senior to Wozniak. She turned pro in 2001, four years before her Canadian opponent joined the WTA circuit. Keothavong has won seven of the ten matches she has played so far in 2011. She has not yet won
a career title.
This was Wozniak’s fourth match in the new season; she has lost all but one of these challenges. However, the player has one WTA career title under her belt from her 2008 Stanford win.
Keothavong and Wozniak’s head to head record is now 2-0 for the British player, who defeated the world number 137 in 2006 at Strasbourg. The players met in the quarterfinals of the qualifying round. The two players were only four ranking spots apart at the
time. Keothavong won the match 3-5, 6-4, 6-1.
Anne Keothavong will now face Slovakian pro, Magdalena Rybarikova, who defeated American eighth seed, Vania King, in three sets 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(9).
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