Christina McHale battles past Jarmila Gajdosova to reach round two – Mercury Insurance Open 2012
World number 27, Christina McHale of the United States, capitalised on the error-ridden game play of Australian contender, Jarmila Gajdosova, to drive her out of the opening round at Mercury Insurance Open on Tuesday. The fifth
seeded American took one hour and 57 minutes to formulate a hard-fought victory in straight sets, 7-6(5), 7-5, to reach the second round of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) International Tour in Carlsbad, California, USA.
It was the first encounter between these two contenders and 20-year-old McHale had to dig deep before coming out as the winner. She had to bag the opening set in a tie-breaker round and was stretched to 12 games in the following
set by some solid resistance from 97th ranked Gajdosova.
The Aussie was outperformed by her own mistakes in the contest. She coughed seven double faults and kept spilling errors all the way to her defeat. Her below par first serve of 47 per cent earned her 29 out of 38 points, whilst
McHale secured 41 out of her 55 first serve points to get the better of her. Both contestants had four break points apiece, with the American converting two and her opponent lagging behind with merely one in the entire matchup to finish on the losing side
in the end.
The contest took off in the conventional manner, with both contenders holding serves in the opening 10 games of the first set. Gajdosova delivered first blow in the 11th game, only to be broken in the very next game
to deadlock the scores at 6-6. A tie-break came into play and McHale nailed an early mini-break to get into the lead, eventually serving out of the set at 7-6(5).
The following set was a replication of the opener, as no break points were witnessed in the first 10 games. The fifth seeded American delivered a decisive strike in the 11th game and comprehensively served out of the
match at 6-5 to move a step closer to the quarter-final rounds of Mercury Insurance Open. She will face the unseeded Japanese, Misaki Doi, in her next battle later this week.
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