Marion Bartoli disposes Ayumi Morita in round two – China Open 2012
World number 79, Ayumi Morita, failed to open up her account against the top ranked Frenchwoman, Marion Bartoli, in the eighth clash of her career. She lost the match in straight sets 4-6, 3-6 and couldn’t pass the second round
of the China Open in Beijing. However, a good battling spirit was shown by the Japanese qualifier who kept the match alive for an hour and 46 minutes.
World number 10, Bartoli, broke serve in the first game of the match and took a lead of 2-0 courtesy a serve hold. She looked impressive with her forehand returns and had already smashed some eye-startling winners to stamp her
authority in the match.
Despite such an aggressive start from the French star, Morita fought back immediately with a serve hold and a breakpoint to make it 2-2. However, she couldn’t absorb the pressure and gifted the breakthrough back to her rival in
the following game. Bartoli protected the breakpoint with a serve hold and pushed the scores to 4-2.
Both players traded breakpoints in the following two games and that made no changes in the lead of the French. She held her serve in the 10th game to inch a step closer to the victory. Things looked pretty good for the
28-year-old French who is battling hard to break into the Top-8 players of the world that will help her to book a spot in the year-end finale scheduled to be contested at Istanbul.
Morita commenced the second set in an aggressive style. She denied to lose a single point on her serve in the first game but could only win one rally in the third game that donated the breakpoint to her rival. She couldn’t mix
up the attacking and defensive strategy that would have helped her to create a strong case in her favour. An exchange of breakpoints didn’t hurt Bartoli at all. She held her serve to make it 5-3 in her favour.
The 22-year-old Japanese qualifier had to hold serve to keep the match alive but all her efforts went in vain. Bartoli faces the winner of the contest between Samantha Stosur and Julia Goerges in round three.
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