Annika Beck surprises Romina Oprandi in the round one – Bell Challenge2012
World number 141, Annika Beck of Germany, made the biggest upset of the tournament so far, as she stunned the fifth seeded player from Switzerland, Romina Oprandi, in the first round of the Challenge Bell in Quebec City, Canada.
The German contender found her higher ranked opponent off guard at the start of the contest and raced to an easy victory in the first set. However, she faced close resistance in the second one, eventually winning the match 6-1,
7-6(11) to move to the second round.
No one had a clue that this would happen later on, when Beck and Oprandi started the opening set by holding their serve in the first two games and evening it out at 1-1. The German player struck in the fourth game and kept winning
one after the other to close the opener 6-1.
Beck banged in a single ace and made the same number of double faults in the first set. The German contestant won most of the points on her first serve and second returns, capturing a total of 13 of the 16 and 11 of the 17 points
on them respectively. The 18-year-old youngster did not provide even a single break opportunity to Oprandi and utilised two of the seven she created for herself.
Second set saw Beck and Oprandi exchanging blows after blows till the end. The German participant struck in the opening game but could not consolidate on it, taking the score to 1-1. Then, Oprandi nailed a breakthrough in the fourth
to move ahead 3-1 but this time Beck bounced back to equalise the proceedings at 3-3. They went on to swap two more strikes in the rest of the set, taking the score to 6-6 and forcing a tie-break. After that, an even bigger battle started between both players,
as they matched each other point to point to take it to 11-11. Finally, the German player managed to win two in a row and closed it 7-6(11).
Beck required one hour and 44 minutes to throw the world number 59 out of the event.
The German competitor will face the winner of French qualifier, Kristina Mladenovic and Madison Brengle of USA in the next match.
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