Roberta Vinci plonks Eleni Daniilidou to clear the opening round – UNICEF Open 2012
Italian tennis ace, Roberta Vinci, started off the UNICEF Open with a victory over the 87th ranked Grecian, Eleni Daniilidou. It was straight sets 6-3, 7-5 finish to a one-sided encounter that hardly lasted 75 minutes
at the grass courts of s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
Vinci, who is the sixth seeded participant in the tournament, was facing the Grecian after almost four years, having ousted her in the opening round of Ortisei in 2008. Daniilidou started the match with a serve hold and repeated
the similar performance in the following serve games. On the other hand, the 20th ranked Italian was also posting comfortable serve holds that kept the scores together at 2-2.
A major turnaround in the proceedings was witnessed in the fifth game when the 29-year-old Italian broke serve to 15-40 and stunned everyone with a couple of cracking winners down the line. Vinci consolidated her position with
a thumping serve hold that pushed the scores to 4-2.
The Grecian tennis star was again tested in the following game but she managed to escape a scare and hold her serve. Surprisingly, she was on the verge of levelling the scores together in the following game but squandered two breakpoints
that led to her downfall.
Vinci exerted immense pressure on her rival. The 29-year-old Grecian saved three breakpoint in the final game of the opening set but failed to hold her competitor on the fourth occurrence; bowing out very cheaply in the first phase
of the encounter.
The second set started with a bang. Vinci started off in an unconvincing manner but stamped her authority by forcing her opponent to save a couple of breakpoints in the following game. However, she failed to bag the breakpoint.
Stunning change in the momentum was witnessed in the third game when the Grecian broke serve to love and compiled a two games lead to 3-1. However, Vinci broke serve back in a ‘do or die’ game levelling the scores at 5-5. She went
on to win another break on the trot and book a berth in the second round of the tournament against Monica Niculescu of Romania.
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