Elena Baltacha hammers Sacha Jones in the first round – ASB Classic 2012
Former Kiwi number two, Sacha Jones, couldn’t impress the Australian Tennis Federation with her first encounter that saw her losing at the hands of British number one, Elena Baltacha, in the opening round of ASB Classic tournament.
The match was played on hard courts in Auckland, New Zealand and lasted almost two hours and 11 minutes; an eye-startling three-setter match ended with a triumph for the superior ranked Briton with a final score of 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
Meeting for the first time in their professional career, both players were fired up to prove their worth at the start of the season. They ended the season on the high note with impressive winning ratio in their last encounters.
Crowd gathered in numbers to ‘boos’ their former tennis ace who changed nationalities stating that she was not being allotted same number of opportunities for her growth in New Zealand as she would receive in Australia.
Jones looked a bit shaken after opening the season at her former homeland, failing to make a mark and was suppressed under the immense pressure of crowd’s arrogance. Both players held their serves upfront but the pressure from
the crowd mounted on Jones and she stumbled in the contest.
Baltacha took complete advantage of the hostile atmosphere and broke in the third and then again in the fifth game to take the score to 4-1 in her favour. Jones fought back with a break in the next game but dropped her serve, which
was good enough to round off massive advantage for the Briton number one.
Jones organized herself and came back as a different player; she won the first game and broke her rival’s serve in the second to take 2-0. The onslaught continued and score moved to 3-0 when finally Briton held her serve and got
off the mark. Both players exchanged break in the sixth and seventh game; score pushed to 5-2 in favour of Jones.
Briton bounced back in the set by winning two consecutive games but couldn’t hold on to her serve in the last game that enforced the third set to decide the match. The final set started in conventional manner, as both players held
their serves upfront. Major setback for Jones came in the third game when her opponent struck marvellous back-to-back down the line winners to earn the break points. Another serve break in the fifth game earned Baltacha a three-game lead and the score moved
on to 4-1.
Jones tried to fight back with a break in the sixth game but it was not good enough to minimize the lead as Briton regained her momentum and broke in the ninth game to bag the third and final set of the match. This victory will
help the British tennis ace to move into the second round of the tournament and advance one step closer to the Auckland championship title.
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