Sania Mirza, Flavia Pennetta advance at Qatar Ladies Open
The Indian wild card Sania Mirza defeated Serbian Bojana Jovanovski in straight sets at the Doha WTA Premier event on Tuesday.
Both players started the match in great form. Mirza held her easy service game in the first game while the Serbian quickly counterattacked and held her serve in the next game. After this, the Indian unleashed her flurry of groundstrokes
to win the next 5 games in a row including two breaks. Jovanovski tried to penetrate her defences and succeeded as she broke Mirza’s serve in the proceeding game. But the fired up Indian quickly broke back in the next game to win the set with score line of
6-2. Although Mirza had a lower first serve percentage of 65 percent as compared to Serbian’s 71 percent. However, she registered an impressive 64 percent win on it.
Mirza took her winning momentum of the first set to the second set as she holds on to her easy service game. World number 54, Jovanovski seemed to re-form herself as she holds on to her opening service game plausibly. Match got
competitive as both players precede the match with exchange of breaks and by holding their serves until Sania held her serve at 6-5. After this, she broke Serbian’s serve for the third time in the next game to clinch the set with 7-5 score. The Indian committed
5 double faults and had a lower first serve percentage of 54 percent as compared to Jovanovski’s 71 percent. However she earned an amazing 68 percent win on it.
The Indian star will be facing Jovanovski’s compatriot Jelena Jankovic in the next round. The 5th seeded Jankovic reached this spot after defeating Omani wild card Fatma Al Nabhani in easy straight sets.
On another court, the Italian Flavia Pennetta dumped Chinese Jie Zheng out of the Qatar Ladies Open in straight sets.
Pennetta prevailed in the first set as she broke Zheng’s serve twice and hammered 3 aces. Thus she won the first set convincingly by score line of 6-2. She got a higher first serve percentage of 61 percent as compared to Zheng’s
56 percent. Along with this, she got an awesome 74 percent win on it.
The Italian kept her winning momentum from the first set to the second as she clinched the set in a similar manner by breaking the Chinese serves twice. Although the world number 45, Zheng played better and had a higher first serve
percentage of 74 percent as compared to Italian’s 60 percent. But Pennetta registered a mind-blowing 100 percent win on it.
The higher ranked Italian will be facing Czech Republican Lucie Safarova in the second round. She came to this spot after triumphing over 7th seeded Polish Agneiszka Radwanska by straight sets.
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