Mirjana Lucic beats Mandy Minella in the opening round clash – Family Circle Cup 2012
Croatian qualifier, Mirjana Lucic, stunned the superior-ranked Luxembourger opponent, Mandy Minella, in the opening round of the Family Circle Cup on Monday afternoon. The 30-year-old Croat took two hours and five minutes to wrap
up victory in twin sets, 7-5, 7-5, disposing of the world number 91 from the star-studded event in Charleston, USA.
Both contestants displayed a gruelling battle throughout the match, exchanging a number of serve breaks and assertive winners. Although Minella lost in straight sets, the resistance she posed in the contest was worth praising.
She went neck-to-neck with Lucic in the matchup but was outplayed in the number of serve breaks being registered in the match. Minella converted five of her 13 break chances, while the Croat opponent bettered her with seven out of 18 conversions to seal victory
in the end.
Lucic had a pathetic serve game in the matchup, delivering just 49 per cent of it on target and coughing 11 double faults. However, she compensated for it by clinching 30 out of 43 first serve points and belting timely serve breaks
to take down the Luxembourger opponent. She further secured 20 out of 46 return points on her opponent’s serve to close out victory in style.
Action started off from the very first game of the match, with Lucic breaking Minella’s serve to lead 2-0. The Luxembourger competitor replied with two break points to draw the scores even at 5-5. It appeared as if a tie-breaker
round would come into play but a timely break of serve in the 11th game left Lucic serving for the set at 6-5. She had no difficulty in doing so and closed out the opener at 7-5 to get one up in the contest.
More taxing battle was witnessed in the following set, with both contestants exchanging four break points right up to drag the scores to 4-4. Minella laboured extremely hard to remain alive in the contest but she remained short
in reaching the class of her opponent. Another exchange of serve break took the set to 5-5 and again it was the Croatian who broke in the 11th game to close out the matchup with identical scores of 7-5. A total of 176 points were played in the match,
with Minella bagging 78 and the Croat winner tanking 98 to come out as the winner.
Lucic will face the ninth seed Czech competitor, Lucie Safarova, in the second round of the Family Circle Cup.
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