High Flying Sabine Lisicki and her 2011 rhythm – Part One
Starting the season standing at rank 175, Sabine Katharina Lisicki of Germany is currently enjoying her best career year after clinching two year to date titles and climbing up the WTA rankings to world number seventeen.
Well known for her attacking style of play, Lisicki is among the craftiest women tennis players around these days. Her powerful right-handed forehand is considered to be her primary weapon of destruction and her rock solid baseline
defence is among the strongest one. The 22-year-old German has been on a continuous journey to improvement throughout the running year and her rankings have been on a high after her consistent recent performances.
Surprising the whole world at the age of 20, Lisicki won her first WTA title at the Family Circle Cup in April 2009. She stunned some of the major players to triumph comfortably. The German stomped over 41-times singles titlist
and the second seed, Venus Williams in the opening round. She then carried her momentum to crush Elena Vesnina with a bagel and sixth seeded Marion Bartoli with a breadstick in the semis. The rising star Lisicki unexpectedly went to the finals to lock horns
with the fifth seeded Caroline Wozniacki, currently the world number one, and showed awe-inspiring skills to breeze past the Dane in straight sets.
"I really couldn't believe I won, because I didn't use my first match points. When I finally won - I don't know which match point it was, seventh, eighth, it felt like 30th - I was so happy," beaming Lisicki expressed. "I've worked
so hard the last couple of weeks and months and it's finally paying off. I knew I had the game to beat those players, and now I think I'm more mature to win the whole tournament."
The German youngster hasn’t had much progress at the start of the on-going 2011 season as she started the season at Auckland in January after standing on 175th rank in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings.
Lisicki entered the Australian Open as world number 156. However, due to her dismal performance, she was ousted from the second qualifier match against Vesna Dolnuts. She fell sixty-two spots after this performance and entered
in Indian Wells WTA Premier event standing at world number 218. Adding further to her misery, she failed to overpower qualifying twelfth seed, Sorana Cirstea of Romania and exited from the opening qualifying round.
The Troisdorf native put a dead end to her bad performances in late March and entered the Miami hard courts as a completely different person. She upset eighteenth seeded Russian Nadia Petrova in the second round to lock horns with
a former world number one, Maria Sharapova. This was just the beginning of her new path of success.
The German entered the clay season standing at 182nd rank and in early April, she stunned fourth seeded French Marion Bartoli in straight sets in the second round of the Charleston WTA Premier event. Despite losing to
Sania Mirza in the proceeding round, she leaped 26 places in the WTA rankings.
The Florida resident, Lisicki continued climbing on the rankings as she made a quarter-final berth at Stuttgart before losing to her compatriot Julia Goerges in straight sets. However, she did shocked sixth seeded Chinese Li Na
on her way to the last eight.
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