Sloane Stephens triumphs over Timea Babos to reach quarters – Internationaux de Strasbourg 2012
In an all-teenager encounter, America’s Sloane Stephens rallied past the Hungarian contender, Timea Babos, in a mouth-watering three setter at the Internationaux de Strasbourg 2012 on Wednesday. She nudged up a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory against her good friend to labour into the final eight at this WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) clay court event taking place in Strasbourg, France.
The American youngster amazingly brushed off 10 out of 14 breakpoints she faced and capitalised on six out of 11 break chances to overpower Babos in their first encounter. After earning this one hour and 55 minutes, Stephens not only took lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against the Hungarian but also booked a spot in the quarter-finals. Both contestants hand played together and conquered three juniors’ Grand Slam doubles titles.
"We won three junior Grand Slams together, so she's obviously a good friend of mine," Stephens was quoted in a post-match courtside interview. "It's always tough playing a friend, but we had a really good match, so I'm happy. I played well last week and this week has been good, so it's good to get a lot of matches in before the French Open. Strasbourg has been really good to me."
Stephens thundered into this International-level tournament and drew the first blood in the third game to take a 3-1 lead. After Babos held her serve once again in the fifth game, the American re-kindled her spark and stroke out the last three games successively. She superbly brushed off all 10 breakpoints she faced and capitalised on two out of three break chances to register a 6-2 success.
The world number 65 on the other hand re-structured in the follow-up set and earned the critical break in the second game to leap to a 3-0 lead. Apart from losing her edge in the seventh game, Babos got the breakthrough in the very next game and pulled out the equalizer by winning six games to three.
Ranked 79th in the WTA Premier Rankings, Stephens carried her losing ways in the final set and suffered the first blow in the opening game to fall at 0-2. Despite recovering in the fourth game, she lost her serve again and went 2-3 down. However, the American went on a four-game rampage after that and clinched the decider with a 6-3 score line.
Up next for Stephens is the Japanese star, Ayumi Morita, who crippled the local wildcard entrant, Virginie Razzano, with a breadstick to set up this outing.
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