Serena Williams breezes past Nicole Gibbs in second round – Bank of the West Classic 2012
This year’s Wimbledon champion, Serena Williams, has carried on her onslaught on the hard courts of Stanford, USA, and has reached the quarter-final rounds of the Band of the West Classic tournament on Wednesday. The top seeded
American tennis legend had no troubles in ousting the local wildcard entrant, Nicole Gibbs, in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1, in the second round of the event.
Rising to the world number four spot after her Grand Slam victory in London, Williams exhibited yet another display of sheer power against the 19-year-old Gibbs. She was too strong for the teenager opponent to break and wrapped
up her 35th victory of the running season in just 62 minutes of play.
Williams banged in seven aces in the match while delivering 60 per cent of her first serve on target. She dropped just six points on her first serve and clinched 21 out of 27 points on it to come out as the winner. She barely spared
three games in the entire matchup for Gibbs and just clobbered her way to victory in her typical assertive manner.
The 19-year-old American had plenty of opportunities in the contest but her bleak game play didn’t allow her to build up any sort of momentum. She had six break chances in the match but could only convert one point in the second
set and dropped her own serve six out of 11 times to finish on the losing side in the end.
Williams ignited the contest with a two successive breaks of serve straight up, rocketing away to a 4-0 lead in no time. Nicole finally held her first serve in the fifth game but could do nothing about the overall onslaught from
the American veteran. She had three break opportunities but frittered away all of her priceless chances, eventually dropping the opening set at 2-6 to fall on her back foot early in the match.
The following set was off to an exactly similar start like the opener, with Williams going for a five-game rampage right away to lead 5-0. Gibbs registered her lone break point of the match in the sixth game to break her bagel
but another cracking strike in the very next game left her stranded. Williams broke her for the sixth time in the match to finish off the contest with a breadstick at 6-1.
Sixth seeded South African, Chanelle Scheepers, is up next for Williams in the quarter-final battle of the tournament.
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