Misaki Doi prevents an upset against Olga Puchkova in the opening round – Malaysian Open 2012
World number 125, Misaki Doi, stamped her authority in the BMW Malaysian Open by defeating the Russian contestant, Olga Puchkova, to open her account. The contest was played on the hard courts of Kuala Lumpur and lasted for almost
a couple of hours before the 20-years-old Japanese grabbed the triumph with the final scores of 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
It was a classic battle between the two players, who were not willing to give up on any stage of the match. Doi struggled to make a mark in the opening set and lost a couple of early breakpoints that led to her downfall. She fought
back to win one breakpoint but couldn’t repeat the heroics to diminish the trail.
The second set was a complete turnaround in the proceedings with the Japanese tennis professional; broke her opponent’s serve early in the set to take the lead. She further enhanced the score line with another successful breakthrough
in the sixth game dodging her opponent with a lead of 5-1. Nothing was going right for the Russian at that stage and it seemed like she had won a game ages ago. With just one successful serve hold, Puchkova lost the set that enforced the third set into play.
A series of breakthroughs at either ends pushed the scores to 3-2 in favour of the Japanese who was the first to register a successful hold and take a lead of 4-2. She broke serve again in the following game and comfortably registered
a successful serve hold to take the match away from her opponent.
The top seed participant of this tournament is the Pole contender, Agnieszka Radwanska, who just flew from Dubai, winning a title by defeating the German beauty queen, Julia Goerges, in a tight two-setter. This is what she had
to say on her triumph, “I don’t have much time now. In three or four hours, I have a flight to Kuala Lumpur. Everything is pretty last minute. But I think it’s a good problem. It looks pretty close, but it’s still far. But I’m not really going to think about
it too much. I’m going to keep playing my game and try to keep up my good tennis, especially in big events like this. I just want to enjoy my tennis and try to win matches.”
Radwanska will look to open her account in a match against the Uzbek competitor, Akgul Amanmuradova.
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