Ayumi Morita outfoxes Misaki Doi to reach the quarter-finals – Malaysian Open 2012
In an all-Japanese contest, Ayumi Morita defeated Misaki Doi, in the second round contest of the BMW Malaysian Open on Thursday. It was a harsh battle between the players in the first half but the winner hijacked the second half
of the match to register 7-6(6), 6-2 in two hours and 16 minutes.
Doi started the match in dismal fashion, losing the first three games of the match including a couple of breakthroughs. She trailed 0-3 but fought back to win one breakpoint in the fourth game and lowered the trail to 4-2. The
games went by and the pressure was increasing on her.
Morita just had to hold her serve in the 10th game to take the first set but she failed to do so courtesy a sublime display of composure and world class shots from her compatriot. She lost the lead and scores were tied
at 5-5. Without much drama, scores tickled over to 6-6 with a tie-breaker round in play.
Unfortunately for Doi, she couldn’t repeat a heroic performance in the ‘do or die’ situation and lost the opening set to her opponent. Morita was happy to have finally grabbed the triumph after a severe struggle in the ending stage
of the set.
The second set was clearly hijacked by the superior ranked Japanese, Morita, who scuttled past her opponent in the first five games. She had broken her opponent’s serve twice in the second set and was already leading 5-0 that required
a historic comeback for Doi but her potential was not enough to register such a landmark.
Doi lost another breakpoint to her opponent that completed the match proceedings with Morita moving ahead in the next round and booking a date with the winner of the match between the former world number one, Jelena Jankovic, and
the oldest competitor of the tournament, the 37-years-old Jill Craybas.
For the record, it was the third win for the 21-years-old Japanese against her compatriot who was only lucky once during the Toyota tournament when Morita retired in the semi-final after playing five games due to an injury.
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