Chanelle Scheepers strains pass Monica Niculescu in the opening round of the Mutua Madrid Open
A surprise victory for the 79th ranked South African, Chanelle Scheepers, as she struggled past the Romanian qualifier, Monica Niculescu in the opening round of the Mutua Madrid Open, being played at the Park Manzanares
in Madrid, Spain on Sunday. She concluded her hard-fought victory at 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3), in two hours and forty eight minutes to enter the second round of the $4,500,000 WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) World Tour tournament.
The 27-year-old South African veteran lays 30 places below Niculescu in the ATP World Rankings and made an amazing breakthrough to defeat the Romanian opponent to register her 10th victory of the running year. Scheepers
had a sloppy start to the game, dropping the opener to her opponent after a stiff contest. She made a tremendous comeback in the game to clinch the next set and carried on his momentum to reel off the third set in a tie breaker round.
None of the contestant registered any ace in the entire matchup, which was quite surprising to see in a game of professional tennis. The South African delivered her 74 per cent first serve on target, conceding two double faults
and winning 42 of 76 points on it. Her game certainly lacked something to be desired, yet Scheepers managed to take down the Romanian competitor.
Scheepers broke twice in the opening set but had to suffer three serve breaks from her opponent. She couldn’t recover from the deficit in the remaining part of the first set and eventually had to submit the opener to Niculescu
at 4-6.
The Romanian competitor appeared a bit overconfident in the next set and allowed Scheepers to sneak her way right into the game. The South African fully capitalized upon the errant stroke play of Niculescu and stung a timely serve
break to get to a 2-1 lead in the second set. The Romanian retaliated immediately with a break point, only to be broken again in the very next game. Scheepers continued to pressurise her opponent with her attacking moves and finally clinched the second set
with a serve break at 6-3 to enforce a third set.
The decisive set went to the wire, with the two contestants exchanging a number of serve breaks. Three break points each were registered by both women before a tie breaker became mandatory at 6-6. Scheepers took the initiative
in the tie breaker round and reeled off four straight points to close the contest at 7-6(3).
Scheepers will be facing the 16th seed Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic in the second round clash of the Madrid Open. Kvitova stood victorious against Alexandra Dulgheru of Romania in straight sets6-4, 6-1, in the opening
round.
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