Andrea Petkovic dispenses Tamira Paszek from the first round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix
World number 19, Andrea Petkovic of Germany took down the Austrian wildcard, Tamira Paszek in an enthralling opening round matchup of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, played at the Porsche Tennis Arena at Stuttgart, Germany on Tuesday. Petkovic made a tremendous comeback to win the three-set contest by 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, in two hours and eighteen minutes to move one step ahead in the $721,000 WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) event.
Germany’s number one, Petkovic had a sloppy start to the contest and dropped the opening set to be on a disadvantage early in the game. She amazingly bounced back right into the game and reeled off the next two sets to register her 21st victory of the running WTA season. Petkovic’s overall brilliant performance was quite impressive and was well applauded by her home crowd at Stuttgart.
The 88th ranked Austrian had control over the match early but gradually tend to lose her focus, allowing her opponent to regroup and back fire at her. Paszek won the first set with utmost ease but appeared totally out of form in the following sets, eventually ending her voyage at Stuttgart. She conceded a number of unforced errors, including six double faults in the second set alone, which wore her out later in the game.
The German looked shaky in the beginning of the contest and dropped serve early to trail 1-3. Her first serve precision was 66 per cent, better than Paszek’s ordinary serve of 47 percent, yet the Austrian took her down to seal the first set at 6-3. Petkovic dropped her serve three times while breaking the opponent once in the opener.
Petkovic made a marvellous recovery from the slump she had in the first set and came out firing at her opponent in the next set. She delivered 91 percent of her first serve on target and collected 15 of 21 points on it. The German was greatly assisted by six double faults from Paszek, who missed plenty of easy shots to remain on the back foot in the second set. The Austrian could break the opponent’s serve only once but suffered three break points from the German before submitted the set at 2-6.
Once getting her momentum from the bagging the second set, Petkovic never looked back and rocketed away to victory, clinching the third set convincingly at 6-2. She broke the Austrian serve three times in the decider and won 60 per cent total points to eject Paszek out of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.
The German has to go through the world number eight, Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, for booking a quarter-final berth in at Stuttgart. The seventh seeded Jankovic crushed her opening round opponent, the lucky loser from Spain, Beatriz Garcia Vidagany, in straight sets 6-1, 6-2.
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