Samantha Stosur dumps Angelique Kerber – Federation Cup World Group Play-Offs
World number five, Samantha Stosur, ousted the 14th ranked German, Angelique Kerber, in the Fed Cup play-offs to give her country a lead of 1-0 in the tie. She dispatched her rival in straight sets 7-6(1), 6-4.
The match started off with a serve hold for the Aussie starlet who stamped her authority with an early serve break to take a lead of 2-0. She consolidated her position further with a tight serve hold. Kerber was looking a bit out
of touch; missing simplest of returns and not able to fire in the serves with lethal accuracy.
Match further moved on as both players held their serves in the following three games; scores were pushed to 2-4. The German finally created an opening and registered her first breakpoint of the match in the seventh game. Scores
were levelled at 4-4 with a serve hold in the following game.
No more breakthroughs were contested in the first set and the tie-breaker round was put into play to decide the winner. With all the experience in the world, it was the 28-year-old Aussie contestant who sneaked successive mini-breaks
to win the battle.
The start to the second set was pretty dismal for the German. She lost a breakpoint in the opening game and went down 0-2. However, she recovered again for the second time in the match to level the scores at 3-3 courtesy to a serve
break.
With serve hold at both ends, scores tickled over to 4-4. However, once again the superior ranked Aussie broke serve in the most critical stage of the game to take the lead and thump her opponent on the back foot. She lost a couple
of points in the 10th game of the second set but bounced back to win the last four and boost the morale of her team with a winning start to the tie.
Earlier in the day, the Slovak tennis ace, Dominika Cibulkova, plonked the Spaniard contestant, Lourdes Dominguez-Lino, in straight sets to give her country the lead in the tie. American squad is also one up after a tight triumph
for the booming starlet, Christina McHale, against Lesya Tsurenka of Ukraine.
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