Gabriela Dabrowski enters the final round of qualifying draw – Citi Open 2011
Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada stared down Australia’s seventh-seeded Tammi Patterson in the second round of qualifying draw, being played here at the Tennis Center College
Park on Sunday.
The 19-year-old Canadian recovered from a sluggish start against the seventh seed, slipping to a 3-6 deficit in the second round, before fighting back to post a 6-3, 3-6,
7-6(2) victory in one hour and 59 minutes of play.
Dabrowski overcame a serious case of yips on serve, as she produced a couple of unforced errors but brilliantly countered her own problems by breaking Patterson’s serve
at will, managing to go one up in their head-to-head score to 1-0.
The match had been nip and tuck the whole day as Patterson had a chance to win the first set, but she played pretty sloppily and let Dabrowski take the first set with six
games to three.
As the second set unfolded, Dabrowski once again managed to take the early lead and it seemed that Patterson’s spirits were dashed out but true to her credit, she broke
back and eventually took a second set to tie the score at one set apiece.
Dabrowski’s ability to have kept making her opponent play the extra balls was crucial to some extent in the third set of the match. Although she faced a tough challenge
in the decider, she quickly settled into her stride and finally wore down her 21-year-old opponent, who could not keep a tight rein on to her sloppy mistakes and lost the set with 7-6(2) score.
Dabrowski wrapped up her impressive effort with a whopping seven aces while committing only three double-faults. In contrast, Patterson double-faulted a whopping seven times
and could score only four aces.
The Canadian put up a great fight during the match, winning 61 percent of points on service, 39 percent of points on return and a total of 97 of 192 points in the match.
By contrast, the Australian lagged behind with a meager difference of 2 percent, winning a total of 95 points.
With this win, the Canadian has grabbed a 1-0 lead in their head-to-head series and now moves on into the final round of the qualifying competition where she will be meeting
up with the third-seeded Petra Rampre of Slovenia, who moved past American wild card Sachia Vickery to set up a final round clash with the Canadian here at Washington D.C.
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