Roberta Vinci trounces Mathilde Johansson the opening round clash – Barcelona Ladies Open 2012
World number 18, Roberta Vinci, defeated the 26-years-old French, Mathilde Johansson, in an epic three-setter opening round battle of the Barcelona Ladies Open. The match lasted for almost an hour and 38 minutes before the Italian
fourth seed escaped a scare to sneak a triumph.
Johansson saved a couple of breakpoints in the opening game of the first set but failed to stop her opponent from converting the third opportunity in her favour. She went down early and the Italian exerted more pressure with a
thumping serve hold.
The situation got worse for the French when her serve was broken in the third game of the match as well. It helped the fourth seed Italian to get hold of the proceedings and play her natural game. A comprehensive serve hold made
it 4-0 for the 29-years-old French who was in no mood to spare anything at all for her rival.
Johansson only clasped one game in the opening set; squandering three major opportunities to break her rival’s serve and get back into the contest. If she had managed to convert two of them, the set would have been much more balanced.
However, the first set proceedings had little psychological affect on the French as she squashed her opponent down to a trail of 0-4 in the second set. She played smartly and forced her competitor to commit several unforced errors.
The frustration further mounted on the Italian when she dropped the third serve game on the trot and went down miserably in the second part of the match. Stage was set for a world class third set battle but the crowd in the arena
was left dejected; majorly due to the inability of the inferior ranked player to handle pressure and keep the momentum.
The final set witnessed an all round onslaught from the Italian who wasted no opportunity at all to devastate her competitor. She broke serve in the opening game and again in the third game that helped her to build an unassailable
lead of 4-0.
Johansson only won three points in her first three serve games of the final set that frustrated her a lot but the situation was such that there only a miracle could have saved a match for her. She was trailing 0-5 down when she
won the first breakpoint but to her misery dropped another serve game and lost the match.
Vinci will contest against the Romanian starlet, Simona Halep, in the next round.
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