Roberta Vinci, Mathilde Johansson enter the second round – XXIV SNAI Open 2011
Second-seeded Roberta Vinci cruised through her first round match against Kazakh qualifier, Sesil Karatantcheva at the 2011 XXIV SNIA Open, here on Tuesday.
The Italian downed Kazakh in straight sets, 6-2 7-5, to set up a second round clash against Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu here today.
Karatantcheva, who is currently ranked number 212 in the world, earlier reached the first round after dismissing Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino, Sophie Lefevre, and Vanda Lukacs on her way to the main draw. However, the right-hander
did not look all confident in her Tuesday’s first round match against the second-seeded and lost the match in just 85 minutes of play.
Vinci, on the other hand, stepped on the court with much more confidence and fired forehands consistently to cruise past the Kazakh qualifier, who was competing in her career’s first Palermo first round.
Although Vinci broke Karatantcheva’s serve during the opening game of the set, the Kazakh did not give up and thus put up a good fight before eventually losing the opener with two games to six.
The decisive set did not change the story for Karatantcheva as Vinci quickly earned a lead of 5-4. The Kazakh, however, did well enough to bounce back during the sixth game and thus clinched a lead for 5-6 but the hard-hitting
Italian managed to break back later in the ensuing game, wrapping up the second set and so the match.
Later, in an all-French matchup between Aravane Rezai and Mathilde Johansson, the more celebrated French woman managed to sweep past Rezai 7-6(5), 6-1.
Johansson started off great and continued her solid clay court game against Rezai, as both women tried to find the range of their meaty groundstrokes. Particularly Rezai’s serve was way shakier than Johansson as she made a whopping
ten double faults during the whole match.
The 26-year-old Johansson was given a tough workout in the first set, as her opponent took the match to a tie-breaker and converted three break points to keep the things close. But that would prove to be the only time she would
get any closer to her attacking tennis; the world number 67’s experience told, 7-6(5), 6-1.
The difference in experience, if not age was pretty evident when the higher ranked French lady clinched the match with a whopping difference of fourteen points. Furthermore, she cracked 45 of 94 points in service and 25 of 60 points
on return en route to her straight sets win.
She now progresses into the second round of the tournament where she will meet top-seeded Flavia Pennetta of Italy.
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