Kristina Barrois upsets Lucie Safarova in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix
German wild card entrant, Kristina Barrois trashed 24-year-old Czech, Lucie Safarova with a breadstick on Monday. She registered a 6-1, 6-4 victory over the Czech to advance to the second round of the 2011 Porsche Tennis Grand
Prix in Stuttgart.
Ranked 79th in the WTA Premier event rankings, the German made semi-finals and quarterfinals berth at many tournaments last year but this season she hasn’t had much progress. However, she re-focused and re-formed before
entering this tournament and downed Safarova in the first round.
By defeating the Czech at Porsche Arena, the 29-year-old German took revenge of her defeat at Indian Wells earlier this season. She has now taken the lead in her head to head series against Safarova by 2-1.
Barrois displayed magnificent skills in the opening set and held her opening serve plausibly. Despite clobbering more unforced errors and having a lower first serve share of 48 percent as compared to Czech’s 58 percent, Barrois
registered an impressive 73 percent win on it. The German also saved the only breakpoint she faced and converted two out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to seal the set by winning six games to Czech’s one.
Barrois carried her winning ways into the second set and held her opening serve through her amazing forehands and backhands. Afterwards, she pinged the balls expertly onto the lines to hold onto her remaining serves. The German
again saved the only breakpoint she conceded and converted one out of two breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to clinch the set with a 6-4 score line.
Safarova, who lays 48 ranks above the German, displayed an impressive run here at this tournament last year as she triumphed over Caroline Wozniacki en route to quarter-finals. Not only this, the Czech made a quarter-final berth
at Brisbane and reached the final at Kuala Lumpur earlier this season. Despite having a higher first serve share and clobbering less unforced errors, Safarova failed to convert the breakpoint opportunities to her advantage and saved only five out of eight
breakpoints she faced.
Barrois will next face 8th seeded French Marion Bartoli and can overwhelm the seed if she plays with the same form. However, she needs to find more breakpoint opportunities and clobber less double faults and unforced
errors to overpower threat from the Frenchwoman. The 26-year-old Bartoli broke Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova’s serve six times to earn a 6-4, 6-1 victory.
Chinese Li Na also advanced to the second round in the third and last first round match of the day. 6th seeded Chinese dumped Latvian Anastasija Sevastova with a convincing 6-2, 6-3 score line and ended her losing streak.
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