Polona Hercog retires; Sorana Cirstea marches on into the second round – Barcelona Ladies Open 2012
Sorana Cirstea of Romania comfortably booked a pot in the second round of the Barcelona Ladies Open at an expense of the eighth seed Slovak, Polona Hercog. Hercog lost the opening set 4-6 and retired from the contest after a slight
discussion with her medics at the Red Clay courts of Barcelona.
With this immature loss, Hercog goes down 0-2 in the head-to-head series against the Romanian, having lost the earlier meeting in the qualifiers of the Pilot Pen Tennis at Yale in 2010. It was a sad end to a competitive encounter
and Cirstea consoled her opponent at the time of retirement as the Slovak headed towards the exits feeling blue.
The 22-years-old Romanian was first to drop serve in the opening game of the match before fighting back into the contest with a thumping breakthrough in the following game. She tried to take advantage of the proceedings with a
serve hold but was forced back courtesy to another tight breakthrough for the Slovak.
Cirstea stayed in the contest despite squandering one breakpoint in the fourth game. Scores were level at 2-2. Both players were settling into the contest and registered a couple of serve holds to push the scores at 4-4. The eighth
seed Slovak was not moving comfortably on the courts; felt like she had pulled of a hamstring but continued to fight her way and stayed close to her rival in terms of scores.
She had an opportunity to power down the 47th ranked Romanian in the ninth game; was allotted three back-to-back breakpoints at 15:40 but squandered all of them. Cirstea stayed focused and smashed blistering winners
down the line on a couple of occasions before covering ground to return a delicately placed drop shot of her rival.
Hercog was on the verge of winning the most critical breakthrough of the match and entering the stage where she was going to serve for the set but that was not the case and she was rather serving to keep the set alive. The limited
movement forced her to drop four successive points on the trot and gift the set to her rival.
Cirstea will take on Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain in the following round.
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