Mona Barthel topples Heather Watson in the opening round – Challenge Bell 2012
Germany’s third seeded player, Mona Barthel, finished strongly to beat the number one British contender, Heather Watson, in the first round of the Challenge Bell in Quebec City, Canada on Monday.
The German participant did not start well, as she lost the opener and then almost went down in the second one, before fight back to capture it in three sets 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 6-1. This tough encounter lasted for two hours and 38
minutes.
Watson hit a blow to her German opponent in the very first game and won her next serve to attain a 2-0 lead. Barthel, though, clawed her was back to equalise the proceedings at 3-3. The British number one broke the German contestant
again in the 11th to move ahead 6-5 but she failed to close it out in the following game, evening out the score at 6-6 and taking it to a tie-breaker. Watson took an early lead but Barthel levelled the score once again. However, the Brit proved
lucky in the end, as she claimed a late mini-break to triumph 7-6(5).
Her statistics were pretty ordinary, as she hit just a couple of aces and committed one double fault. The 5ft 7in tall put in 67 percent of the first serves and bagged merely 24 of the 40 points on them. In comparison, Barthel
gave a pathetic performance on her serve, making seven horrible double faults and managing to keep her first delivery percentage at just 37.
Watson and Barthel exchanged a break in the opening three games of the second set to level the score at 3-3 and then they did not drop their serve till the end, taking the score to 6-6 and forcing a tie-breaker. These two players
went neck to neck till 5-5 but then the German national grabbed two points in a row, closing it 7-6(5).
Barthel’s first serve percentage was even worse than the first set, as she maintained it at just 34 but good thing for her was that she converted 11 of the 13 of them into points. The German contender replied aggressively to Watson’s
second serves, clinching 13 of the 16 points on them.
The 22-year-old played tremendously well in the decider, breaking her rival three times and allowing her to win only one game throughout to win 6-1.
Barthel is drawn to play either Michelle Larcher De Brito of Portugal or Slovakia’s Petra Rampre in the second round.
Tags: