Flavia Pennetta ousts Sorana Cirstea in the first round – ASB Classic 2012
Italian world number 20, Flavia Pennetta, doubled his head-to-head tally against the 21-years-old Romanian, Sorana Cirstea, with a straight sets win, 6-4, 7-6(5), in the first round of the ASB Classic tournament. It took an hour
and 34 minutes for the 29-years-old experience, Pennetta to overpower her opponent. The match was contested on hard courts in Auckland, New Zealand and was witnessed by sizeable crowd in the arena.
Clearly, the fourth seeded Pennetta had the overwhelming advantage entering this game and on paper it seemed like an easy contest for her. The match kicked-off in striking fashion, as the Italian broke in the first game to make
an early impact and held her serve in the second to confirm her dominance.
Cirstea calmed her nerves in the following set and held her second serve to push the score to 2-1, keeping the scores ticking with Pennetta leading with two games. Inferior ranked Romanian struck back in the sixth game and broke
her opponent’s serve to level the score at 3-3. With two aces in the next game, the Romanian took the score to 4-3 in her favour.
Pennetta held her serve to push the score card to 4-4; she was all fired up in the ninth game, hammered several winners down the line and struck a marvellous double handed backhand shot across the court to clinch the second break
of the set. It was a crucial break because the Romanian was forced to break in the next game to keep the set alive but she utterly failed to do so.
Leading one set up and looking extremely threatening, Pennetta proved her mark once again when opened the second game of the second set with a marvellous ace. To her surprise, Cirstea played some remarkable drop shots to win crucial
points on many occasions. Both players traded breaks in the fourth and fifth game to push the scores to 3-3.
The experienced Italian used her guile to break once again in the seventh game but she couldn’t hold on to her serve in the next game, failing to capitalize on the moment. She again broke her rival’s serve in the ninth game but
once again Cirstea proved a lot tougher than expected and broke her rival’s serve to level the score at 5-5. Four breaks in a row pushed the crowd on their toes and they were brought to life.
No more breaks were seen in the next two games; tie breaker round was enforced to decide the set. The Italian’s precise shot making pulled down curtains for the Romanian, with Pennetta marching into the second round of the tournament.
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