Ana Ivanovic vs Roberta Vinci – Match Preview: Tournament of Championships 2011
This year’s Tournament of Champions is being held at the Bali International Convention Centre in Bali, Indonesia and the two players that will encounter each other on indoor hard courts are defending champion Ana Ivanovic and fourth
seeded Italian Roberta Vinci.
The two challengers are not meeting for the first time in their professional career and have duelled against each other six times making them well aware of each other’s style of play and technique. In the head-to-head series Serbian
Ivanovic takes the lead with four matches to Italian Vinci’s two.
Meeting for the first time in 2006, the two had battled it out on carpet courts at Antwerp and Ivanovic had managed to oust Vinci in straight sets. After a year, they once again got into a faceoff with each other on hard courts
of Gold Coast and Ivanovic did it again!
After that, the two met each other for another four times; once in 2009, 2010, and twice in 2011. During 2009 and 2010 Ivanovic had ousted Vinci on hard courts of Brisbane and Linz respectively. However, 2011 saw a change of events
with Vinci gearing into top form, she managed to flabbergast Ivanovic twice.
Their initial meeting in 2011 was on hard courts of Pattaya City during the quarterfinal and Vinci got the better of Ivanovic by ousting her in straight sets, for the first time! The last time they clashed was at the Rogers Cup
held in Toronto and once again Vinci managed to break Ivanovic in straight sets! Although in the head-to- head series Vinci is at the losing end, by attaining a supreme shape this year she has managed to turn the tables on Ivanovic in their previous two meetings.
The fourth seed made her first appearance at this tournament in 2001 and although, she lost the second match, she won her first against Annabel Ellwood. This is the second time that she has managed to qualify for this event and
that too after a decade!
Nevertheless, Vinci has shown tremendous improvement with results as a semi finalist and quarterfinalist. Moreover, she bagged three WTA tournaments! Accomplishing her first title at Barcelona, she then moved on to conquer Jelena
Dokic at the final of Den Bosch (UNICEF Open) and later, she added another title to her haul by defeating Irina-Camelia Begu at the Budapest Open in Hungary.
Mean while, Ivanovic is making her third appearance at the Tournament of Championships, the first time she qualified for this event was in 2006 and she lost the first round to Olga Puchkova. Nonetheless, she again qualified for
the event in 2010 and this time made it to the finals where she got rid of Alisa Kleybanova to take home the crown.
The former world number one has had a topsy turvy year and even though a lot was expected from her she was unable to perform to her utmost capability, like she did in 2008 and bagged the French Open title at Roland Garros. In addition,
her most notable achievement this year was when she reached the semi finals at Birmingham.
A majority of tennis virtuosos and tennis critics are of the view that if Ivanovic brings out her deadly forehand she might just bag the match in three sets. However, it is expected that the fourth seeded Italian will conquer Ivanovic
in straight sets.
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