Mona Barthel outplays Grace Min in her opening encounter – ASB Classic 2013
Seeded at number eight in the tournament draw, Mona Barthel, had an excellent beginning to the new WTA season and registered a thumping victory in the opening round of ASB Classic on Tuesday. The 39th ranked German took
merely 51 minutes to wrap up his victory in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, against the American underdog, Grace Min.
Barthel was facing Min for the first time in her career and she took not time in getting under her skin. The hot favourite German was off to a flying start and kept dominating her bleak opponent every segment of the match. She
played her usual aggressive game and went on hitting her opponent with full force. On the other hand, 182nd ranked could barely win four games in the entire matchup, utterly failing to have any sort of impact on the match. Her weak baseline defence
couldn’t withstand the fiery ground strokes from Barthel and eventually submitted to her in the second set.
The opening set was ignited with two cracking back-to-back serve breaks from Barthel. She didn’t let Min to settle down in the contest and rocketed away to an impeccable 5-0 lead in no time. By the time the American contestant got
her eye in the match, Barthel was serving for the set at 5-1. The eighth seeded German bagged the first set comprehensively with a breadstick to lead 1-0 in the match.
The following set didn’t bring any luck for Min and she had to suffer two more consecutive breaks of serve from her opponent. She was looking in a very awkward position at 0-4 but some signs of hope glittered for her when she registered
her first break point of the day in the sixth game. The American contender held her next serve and curtailed the score deficit to 3-4. She needed another breakthrough to get back on even terms with Barthel but the eighth seeded German came up with another crushing
serve break from out of nowhere and sealed her victory at 6-3.
Barthel will net play against the Greek wildcard participant, Eleni Daniilidou, for a place in the quarter-final match of ASB Classic later this week.
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