Kuznetsova survives but Jankovic out of Montreal
Top seed Jelena Jankovic has been defeated in her opening match at the Rogers Cup in Montreal, with qualifier Iveta Benesova handing her a straight-sets defeat.
The world No. 3 took a 5-3 lead in the opening set before 75th-ranked Benesova broke back and eventually ran out the 7-6(3), 6-3 winner, a result which will leave Jankovic severely short of match fitness heading into the US Open.
Since back injury resulted in retirement against eventual runner-up Vera Zvonareva at Wimbledon, and an ankle injury forced Jankovic off the court during her second-round match in Portoroz during July, the Serb has played three tournaments, losing in her opening match twice and suffering a third-round defeat against 114th ranked Akgul Amanmuradova in Cincinnati last week.
The news was better for Svetlana Kuznetsova, however, as she avoided consecutive first round losses after defeating fast improving teen Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in three sets in her opening match in Montreal.
Unseeded in Cincinnati, Kuznetsova had drawn another former Grand Slam champion in Maria Sharapova in a tough first-round match-up, and in a topsy-turvy match it was the latter who prevailed in three sets, sending the 25-year-old packing far earlier than she would have liked.
It was a situation that was indicative of what has been a largely disappointing 2010 for Kuznetsova, with her tournament victory at San Diego earlier this month the only real respite in a string of mediocre results (including a third-round defeat as defending champion at the French Open) that saw her ranking drop out of the top-10 to world No. 21 at the beginning of that event.
By contrast, world No. 22 Pavlyuchenkova has this season claimed the first two WTA Tour titles of her career, and with world No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki’s 20th birthday last month is now the highest-ranked teenager in women’s tennis.
The 19-year-old had arrived in Montreal in strong form, having won the title in Istanbul (admittedly without facing a player inside the top 50) before making an impressive run to the semi-finals in Cincinnati last week, where she was defeated in three sets by Sharapova.
So Pavlyuchenkova had perhaps entered this match in better form than her Russian counterpart, but it was Kuznetsova who was the first to make a move in this match, securing the break in the third game of the first set and with it the 2-1 advantage, but the response was immediate as Pavlyuchenkova levelled at 2-2 before Kuznetsova broke her younger opponent’s serve once again the lead in the opening set.
Serving out the set, however, proved to be a tougher task for the dual Grand Slam champion, who squandered her first opportunity to do so before breaking Pavlyuchenkova to love to gain a second bite at the cherry, this time making no mistake about it with some strong serving ensuring Kuznetsova sealed the first set 7-5.
Once again in the second the early break went Kuznetsova’s way, but after squandering two more break point chances in Pavlyuchenkova’s next service game – which, had she won one of them, would have given her a 4-1 lead in the set – the world No. 16 was broken herself as the youngster refused to give up the fight and levelled the set at 3-3. A second break as Kuznetsova served to stay in it at 4-5 handed an increasingly confident Pavlyuchenkova the set and the momentum heading into the third.
Kuznetsova though regrouped to dominate in the third as she emerged the 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 victor.
With 49th-ranked Timea Bacsinszky next up for Kuznetsova, and should she win that a possible third-round match against seventh seed Agnieszka Radwanska (runner-up to Kuznetsova in San Diego), the 2004 US Open champion might just have the chance to put an ordinary year behind her and build some momentum as she returns to Flushing Meadows for another tilt at the title in 2010.
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