Lucie Safarova and Nadia Petrova sail to second round of Qatar Ladies Open 2011
Czech Lucie Safarova stunned seventh seeded Agnieszka Radwanska in the first round of the Qatar Ladies Open 2011 to make amends for her two previous early exits from the tournament.
The ongoing Qatar Open Tournament has been organised after a two-year break. The tournament was last held back in 2008 and was then scrapped as the nation was chosen hosts for another premier Women Tennis Association Tour Tournament.
In her opening match against the Polish Radwanska, Safarova defeated her opponent in straight sets, 7-6, 6-3 to advance to the second round of the competition.
Safarova started off the year with a quarterfinal appearance at the Brisbane International. She was then thrashed out in the third round of Australian Open 2011.
However, in her first appearance at the WTA Qatar Open, she was absolutely brilliant. Safarova looked in great touch as she extended her domination over the world number 10, who she has now defeated three times in their four meetings.
Both player exchanged breaks as the first set went into a tiebreaker. However, Safarova held her nerves and came out on top winning the first set 7-6. Contrastingly, the second set was pretty much one sided. The Czech broke her opponent’s serve twice in
the set and then held the lead to complete a satisfying victory.
“It's nice to start off with a win, especially in Doha where I've never won a match before,” said Safarova, who has won four singles titles.
On the other hand, Radwanska who was a favourite for this clash looked completely out of sorts. The Polish star has enjoyed a great deal of success in the season. She reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open earlier in the year where she lost to
the eventual champion Kim Clijsters.
Seeded seventh at this tournament, Radwanska was expected to put up a magnificent performance again but her shot execution was poor to say the least. She committed a number of unforced errors during the second set which proved to be costly in the end.
In another match, 2006 Qatar Open winner Nadia Petrova of Russia ousted Italian Roberta Vinci 6-4, 6-2. Petrova is now expected to face the world number one Caroline Wozniacki, who was given a bye into the second round and will play in her first match on
Wednesday.
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