Kaia Kanepi defeats wildcard entrant Saisai Zheng in 1st round – China Open 2011
Estonian Kaia Kanepi defeated wildcard entrant Saisai Zheng in the opening round of the China Open 2011. The two battled it out on outdoor hard courts of the National Tennis Center, Beijing, China and after one hour and fifteen
minutes the higher ranked Kanepi triumphed in straight sets of 6-0, 6-3 against the Chinese wildcard entrant Zheng on the 2nd of October.
Dominating from the very start was Kanepi, although, she did not serve first, she opened the scoreboard at 1-0 by breaking her opponent in the very first game. First to serve was Zheng and was unable to clog the first game. As
Kanepi capitalized on an early break, she also held her serve in the second and by the end of the third game she was leading 3-0 as she had again broken her adversary in the third. In the following three games, she further increased the gap to 4-0 and then
5-0. As she served for the opening set in the sixth game, she clogged a bagel set victory against Zheng.
After taking a thrashing in the opening set, Zheng put up a relatively better fight in the second set. Mean while, Kanepi powered through the first set and set the tone for the second.
Opening for the second set was again Zheng and this time she was able to win on her serve to roll the scoreboard at 1-0. Right behind her, at her heels was Kanepi, who too held her service game and was quick to place herself beside
Zheng on the scoreboard at 1-1. However, in the third game Zheng had double faulted on her second serve and gave a game to Kanepi, who was now leading with 2-1.
During the third and the fourth games, both the players were capable of handling the pressure and won on their service games. By the end of the sixth game the scoreboard was standing at 4-2 with Kanepi again leading with a break
and a game. Kanepi took the competitive edge as she broke her adversary in the seventh game and now had a secure lead of 5-2.
As Kanepi served for the match, she was not expecting to double fault but she did and endorsed a game to her adversary but in the next game she sealed her victory by breaking back her rival to secure a berth in the second round
of the event.
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