Samantha Stosur slays Elena Baltacha in round one – Roland Garros French Open 2012
Aussie number one, Samantha Stosur, trashed the British tennis icon, Elena Baltacha, to ease into the second round of the Roland Garros French Open on Sunday. She completed the match in quick succession; winning in straight sets
6-4, 6-0.
Stosur lead the head-to-head scores by 2-1 before the encounter so the psychological pressure was already over the 68th ranked Briton. The only time Aussie player wasn’t able to go through the Briton was way back in
2003 in Surbiton.
So, a lot had changed since that time and the reigning US Open champion has been in mixed run of form; haven’t been able to answer the calls from the former world number one, Venus Williams, this year. However, she has proved her
worth in the other tournaments.
Baltacha bowed early in the opening set; losing the opening serve game and drowned to a trail of 0-3. She looked a bit worn out probably to the fact that she was not finding her form and the tension had crept in her game play.
She continued to fight hard throughout the set and finally got the breakthrough in the nick of the time to decrease the trail to 4-5.
However, the shocking news for the British fans came in the following game when their superstar failed to hold on to her serve and lost the breakpoint that also ended the first set in favour of the sixth ranked Aussie. It was the
most agonizing ending to the promising start for the Briton but Stosur won the set deservingly having played a lot better than her rival.
Nothing at all was spared in the second set for the Briton who was completely down and out after the close first set loss. The Aussie starlet started the set with a thunderous serve hold and coupled it with a close breakpoint.
From that point onwards, Stosur didn’t see backwards and continued to slam down the Briton in every aspect of the game registering a bagel in the end. It was the performance that must have lifted the morale of the sixth seed Aussie who has been short of dominating
victories in the recent times.
In a post-match interview, the Aussie said, "I'm overall happy with the way I played and the score line and everything else. It's good to be on these courts again. It's obviously a beautiful court to play on. The ball definitely
gets up high - you can use your kick serve and topspin ground strokes well. It's nice to be back."
Next up for Stosur is American star, Irina Falconi.
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