Michaella Krajicek defeats Tatjana Malek to advance to the second round at the Malaysian Open
Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands, ousted the German Tatjana Malek 6-3, 6-2 in the first round of the BMW Malaysian Open on Tuesday. Krajicek took barely 70 minutes to outplay Malek and advance to the second round of the tournament.
Soon after the beginning of the match, it began to look like a one-sided contest with Krajicek dominating most of the time. Although her first serve percentage was far below average at 45 per cent, she compensated for it by winning most of her serve points.
Krajicek won 18 out of 22 first serve points, as her opponent took 19 of 31.
No serve breaks were seen in the opening five games of the first set. Krajicek took the momentum of the game with her first break point in the sixth game, leading the set by 4-2. Her powerful ground strokes were poorly met by Malek. The German had an impressive
first serve percentage of 74 in the opener, but she failed to collect points on crucial occasions. However, she successfully denied her opponent five times from breaking her serve.
Both women held their serves to take the score to 5-3, with Krajicek serving for the set, as she faced no real difficulty in serving out of the first set, sealing it at 6-3.
Her first serve percentage alarmingly fell to just 36 per cent in the following set, but she kept securing crucial points. She broke the opponent’s serve in the very first game and then held her serve to lead 3-1 in the second set. Malek was not in any sort
of a rhythm and kept hitting the ball long and wide. She got one break chance which Krajicek successfully defended.
Krajicek was gifted with triple-break points by the German at 4-2. She frittered away the first two before securing the third one to take the impassable lead of 5-2. She served out of the second set with ease, sealing victory and a pass to the second round
for her at 6-2.
She will next be squaring off against the third seed Russian, Alisa Kleybanova, in her next round battle. Kleybanova crushed Jing-Jing Lu of China in the first round by 6-1, 6-1.
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