Monica Puig trounces Madalina Gojnea to advance into second qualifier – Tashkent Open 2012
World number 156, Monica Puig, slammed away the 205th ranked Romanian professional, Madalina Gojnea, in the first qualifying round of the Tashkent Open. It was an easy draw for the 18-year-old Puerto Rico born who dispatched
the 25-year-old Romanian in straight sets 6-0, 6-2.
A complete assault was launched by the 18-year-old Puig from the word go. She completely dismantled the confidence of her rival who looked to be in the poorest form of her life. Gojnea failed to return the easiest of shots and
always found net on her way. Probably, the lack of practice resulted in such a sub-standard performance from the Romanian.
Puig commenced the match with a stunning serve hold and mounted immense pressure on her rival with the help of a breakpoint in the second game. She continued to build on the emphatic start and bagged another serve hold but not
before she had to save a couple of breakpoints. No damage was done as far as the fourth seed Puerto Rico representative was concerned.
However, everything was lost on the other side of the court. The Romanian professional failed to bounce back into the contest and lost the second breakpoint of the match in the fourth game. She was trailing 0-4 at that stage and
another serve hold from her rival made it worse for her. She was playing to save an embarrassing bagel but couldn’t even stop her opponent from winning the sixth straight game of the match.
It was a terrible show from the decent professional who was supposed to give some fight to the 18-year-old competitor. The second set witnessed the first serve hold for her in the second game and the sarcastic smiles and chants
for the spectators were experienced around the arena. Puig didn’t waste much time in stamping her authority as she won the breakpoint in the fourth game and took a lead of 3-1.
Gojnea could just bag one more serve hold before her opponent grabbed the second breakthrough of the set in the eighth game to round off the match proceedings and book a date with Vesna Dolonc.
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