Mirjana Lucic eases past Jamie Hampton to secure a second round spot – Bell Challenge 2011
Mirjana Lucic of Croatia trashed American Jamie Hampton in straight sets at the Bell Challenge 2011, an International level WTA event held on the indoor hard courts in Quebec, Canada. She registered a 6-4, 6-2 victory over the
21-year-old American to advance into the second round on Tuesday.
29-year-old Croat made use of her tennis experience to maintain her winning record against Hampton. It took her one hour and eleven minutes to overpower the American, ranked 126th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings.
By doing so, Lucic not only booked a second round spot but also extended her lead in the head-to-head series by 2-0 against Hampton.
World number 104, Lucic got the first blood in the opening game and later kept her composure to bag in entire serves to clinch the opener with a 6-4 score line. She warded off the only breakpoint faced and capitalised on one out
of five breakpoint opportunities to her advantage. Regardless of spilling more errors and double faults, she clobbered a slightly higher first serve share and earned a magnificent 78 percent win on it.
The Dortmund native, Lucic carried his winning momentum into the second set and after earning the coveted break in the fifth game, she went 4-1 up. Despite losing her way in the proceeding game, the Croat broke Hampton’s serve
again in the seventh game to eventually seal the set by winning six games to two.
The higher ranked Croat committed five double faults and produced a poor first serve share of 44 percent as compared to Hampton’s 59 percent. However, she registered an impressive 67 percent win on it. Lucic further spiced the
set by saving five out of six breakpoints faced and capitalised on three out of four breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
Lucic had a drastic season so far. Except for reaching the quarters at Strasbourg and Birmingham, she was ousted from either the opening or second round from all the WTA events this season. The Croat also fell to a seven match
losing streak and snapped out from it after winning the opening round match at US Open.
Up next for the beaming Croat is the sixth seeded Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova who defeated Chinese Zhang Shuai in straight sets to reach this spot.
Strycova saved five out of seven breakpoints faced and converted five out of fifteen breakpoint chances to her advantage to seal the deal with a 6-4, 6-2 victory in one hour and thirty-five minutes.
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