Li Na strains past Lucie Safarova to round two - Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 2012
World number eight, Li Na, strained past the 25-year-old Czech, Lucie Safarova, in the opening round clash of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix to commence her campaign in Stuttgart Germany. She completed the triumph in straight sets
7-6(4), 6-4 taking just a fraction over an hour and a half.
Both players had played five matches before this encounter and the 30-year-old Chinese led the head-to-head tally with 4-1 and stretched her lead with this victory. It has been tough time for the Chinese who has seen a major slump
in her game play in recent times probably due to the aging factor. However, she is still the best Asian tennis player on the planet.
The opening set witnessed no breakthroughs at all. The eighth seed Chinese constructed five different opportunities to break serve but failed to convert any of them in her favour. She saved a couple of breakpoints to keep herself
level with her counterpart. Both players were eager to sneak a breakthrough but no one could take benefit of the allotted opportunities that enforced the tie-breaker round into play.
With massive experience at her disposal, the Chinese starlet won an early mini-break and coupled it with two stunning winners down the line that confirmed her triumph in the first half of the match. Trailing one set down, Safarova
looked a bit disappointed at her effort in the dying moments of the opening set and looked a bit bobbed down.
The disappointment for the Czech hurt her a lot in the second set. She lost the opening serve game and went down 0-2 at the start. That was the turning point in the set as no more breakpoints were contested throughout the match.
The Czech starlet couldn’t convert the only opportunity in the sixth game to break serve and donated the victory to her opponent. It was pretty annoying for her and she left the arena in the same agony and despair.
Li Na needed this win to pump up her morale and enhance her motivation level. She will be up against the Slovakian contestant in the next round. However, the competitor will be decided after the match between the two beauty queens,
Daniela Hantuchova and Dominika Cibulkova. Hantuchova has won the Pattaya Open to bag her first title of this year; however, her opponent is still hunting her opportunity to win the title having squandered one earlier this month in the final of the Barcelona
Ladies Open.
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