2011 French Open: Yanina Wickmayer slays Monica Niculescu to cruise into the second round
21st seed Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium slaughtered Monica Niculescu of Romania with a bagel to advance into the second round of the 2011 Roland Garros, second of the four Grand Slam event in the season held in Paris,
France. The Romanian showed no activity in the opening set on Tuesday.
World number 22, Wickmayer eased past Romanian with an amazing 6-0, 6-3 score line at Stade Roland Garros on their second meeting.
A former top fifteen player, the Belgian dominated her opponent in the opening set. She slaughtered Niculescu by breaking her serve three times and saved both breakpoint faced with her amazing defensive skills. Wickmayer clobbered
many unforced errors i.e. 13 to 10 and produced an equal first serve share of 70 percent, however, she converted three out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to clinch with a bagel.
Wickmayer carried her winning ways into the final set and after clobbering many unforced errors again, she converted all three breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to seal the set by winning six games to three. The Belgian
saved three out of five breakpoints faced and registered an impressive 57 percent win on her slightly lower first serve share.
21-year-old Belgian has had a good season so far as she reached the final at Auckland before losing to Hungarian Great Arn. Wickmayer then made a semi-final berth at Indian Wells and reached quarter-finals at Charleston and Brussels
before losing to eventual champion Caroline Wozniacki on both occasions.
23-year-old Romanian, on the other side of net, hasn’t had much progress this season though she showed spirit at Estoril where she made a semi-final berth before losing to eventual champion Anabel Medina Garrigues.
Up next for the seeded Belgian is the Japanese Ayumi Morita who made an epic come back from a set down to triumph over French wild card entrant, Kirstina Mladenovic.
Another seeded Belgian who advanced into the second round is the Australian Open champion Kim Clijsters. She was in awesome form at the start of the season and reached the number one rank but for only a week. Her form stayed the
same but injuries ruled her out from many tournaments.
Despite clobbering 33 unforced errors as compared to her rival, Belarusian Anastasia Yakimova’s 15, Clijsters converted six out of eleven breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to seal the deal with a 6-2, 6-3 victory. The Belgian
also committed five double faults but she saved nine out of twelve breakpoints conceded to advance in this major tournament.
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