Sorana Cirstea upsets Samantha Stosur in the opening round – Australian Open 2012
Biggest upset of the Australian Open was witnessed in the Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday, when the 59th ranked Romanian contestant, Sorana Cirstea, defeated the Aussie tennis ace, Samantha Stosur, in straight sets 7-6(2),
6-3. It was such a disappointing event for every fan at the Melbourne Park, as their number one tennis player was knocked-out in the opening round by the inferior ranked Romanian.
The Aussie tennis ace started the proceedings with a break serve and held on have a 2-0 lead. Cirstea didn’t wasted time to reply back and broke serve in the fourth game to level the scores. No breaks were seen in the next two
games; couple of breaks were traded between two players in the seventh and eighth game that kept the scores level at 4-4.
Next four games were played in cautious manner as both players didn’t want to take any risks at the vital stage of the game. No one broke his rival’s serve and the set entered into a tie-breaker round. After an intense battle in
the initial rallies of the decider, the Romanian contestant held her nerves and took the two crucial back-to-back points to finish off the first set proceedings.
It was such a shock to the fans at the arena because their local tennis ace was trailing one set down at her home soil. World number five, Stosur looked confident to pull this back but started the second set in dismal manner; lost
the game on her serve; fought back to break serve and levelled the scores. The neck-to-neck battle continued for the next two games before the Romanian flabbergasted everyone and broke once again to take the lead; this time she held her serve to capitalize
on that advantage.
Stosur stayed in the hunt for the vital break and fought well but wasn’t provided any opportunity in the games to follow. The Romanian faced serve from her rival in the ninth game; played down the lines winners that excited the
small portion of the crowd that came all the way to watch their tennis ace. It was good enough to win her the place in the second round.
First head-to-head encounter was played between the two tennis aces in Roland Garros French Open 2009; it was bagged by the Aussie tennis ace and she doubled the lead with a win in East West Bank Classic tournament contested in
Los Angele, the same year. Cirstea fought her way back a year later in June 2010 in Hopman Cup in Perth. This was the opportunity for her to level the head-to-head scores and she made no mistake in confirming the second win over the experienced Stosur.
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