Elina Svitolina shocks Stephanie Foretz Gacon in opening round –
Ankara Cup 2011
Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina upset top seeded French, Stephanie Foretz Gacon, in straight sets at the Ankara Cup 2011, an ITF Women’s Circuit event taking place on the indoor hard courts in Ankara, Turkey. She formulated a 6-2, 7-5
success over the 30-year-old Frenchwoman to advance into the second round on Tuesday.
Ranked 252nd in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier Rankings, Svitolina surprised everyone after trashing the world number 100, Gacon – who is also the highest ranked player of this tournament. She not only inched towards
her second career title but also secured a round of sixteen spot.
The Ukrainian starlet confidently marched into the Turkish hard courts and held her opening serve in the first game to take the initial lead. The seed fought back hard and levelled the scores at 2-2. Later, Svitolina unleashed
flurry of backhand slices and angled shots and wiped out the next four games in a row. She brushed off both breakpoints faced and cashed in half of the four breakpoint opportunities to her advantage, clinching the set with a 6-2 score line.
Svitolina carried her winning momentum into the final set and smoothly bagged entire serves without facing any breakpoint. In addition to this, she capitalised on one out of many break chances to her advantage in the last game,
sealing the set by winning seven games to five.
The seeded Gacon was enjoying a successful season so far. She breezed into the Quanzhou ITF event in January (lost to Chinese Jingjing Lu in the title-round). Her exceptional form continued in the remaining tournaments the Frenchwoman
entered. She made final showdowns at Hammond (fell to fifth seed Madison Brengle), Dothan (lost to Hungarian Melinda Czink), Torun (third seed Edina Gallovits-Hall) and Contrexeville (outclassed by Iryna Bremond). In addition to this, the French veteran qualified
for the main draw of many WTA events but she failed to display her true colours in this tournament.
Svitolina will square off against her compatriot, Olga Savchuk, who crippled Russian qualifier Marina Melnikova with a breadstick to reach this spot.
Second seeded Alexandra Cadantu also became casualty of the day. She suffered a 2-6, 6-2, 4-6 defeat by the hands of the Hungarian, Katalin Marosi.
The Romanian lost her serve twice in the opening set but broke Marosi’s serve three times to bag the equaliser with a 6-2 score line. Cadantu, however, lost her ways again in the decider and eventually exited with disappointment.
Marosi will advance to meet Dutch Kiki Bertens in the second round.
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