Angelique Kerber owns Stephanie Dubois to claim a berth in the third round – Australian Open 2012
German tennis icon, Angelique Kerber, kept her unbeaten record intact against the Canadian, Stephanie Dubois, with a straight sets win 7-5, 6-2 in the second round encounter of the Australian Open tournament. On Thursday, both
players locked horns for the second time in their professional career and contested brilliantly for the first half of the match before the German took over the contest, dominated the second set and placed a berth in the third round of the tournament.
Sizeable crowd had gathered at Court 8 in Melbourne, Australia, to witness this encounter. It was obvious that the German will dominate the show provided her superior ranking and the psychological advantage of that head-to-head
triumph in Midland almost four years back in 2007. The contest was pretty interesting in the first set considering the proximity of scores and open game play. The second set witnessed a tamed performance from the inferior ranked participant as her stamina
was completely drained in the first half of the match.
Dubois started the proceedings with a successful serve and this was seen at both ends for the first five games of the set. Two breaks were exchanged in the sixth and seventh game that pushed the scores to 4-3 in favour of the Canadian
with her opponent to serve the next game. Kerber levelled the scores with a successful serve game that followed with three success breakthroughs shared in the ratio of 2:1 to Kerber. The German took advantage of the lead and held her serve to round off the
first set proceedings.
It was crucial for the German to finish off this match in her favour in quick succession the longer the match will go, the greater stamina it will consume that will leave her with a very little amount of energy later in the day
when she partnered with Christina McHale to take on Kveta Peschke & Katarina Srebotnik in the doubles category of the tournament; although she lost that match but her performance spot on.
She did exactly what was required of her; fasten the pace of the match; played aggressively throughout the second set and ousted her opponent sparing just a single game for her. She won four successive breaks to confirm her place
in the round three of the contest. It will be a tougher battle for her in the next round because most of the big guns have made it to the last 32.
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