Tamira Paszek upsets Jelena Jankovic in 1st round – China Open 2011
Tenth seeded Jelena Jankovic was the first seeded casualty on Saturday night to lose against the unseeded Austrian Tamira Paszek in straight sets during opening round of China Open 2011. The players had combated on outdoor hard
courts of the National Tennis Center in Beijing, China. After a drawn out match of one hour and fifty four minutes, the world number fifty four Paszek ousted world number twelve Jankovic to secure a berth in the second round.
Opting to serve in the first round of the match was Jankovic, who had just won the pitch and expertly managed to hold her serve in the first game. She then went on to securing a second game against Paszek, as she had double faulted
in her second serve to take a mini lead of 2-0. However, Paszek was not ready to throw in the towel as yet and broke back immediately in the next game to reduce the deficit to 1-2.
The players then constantly broke each other back to back in the following four games and the scoreboard had rolled 3-4 and as Paszek held serve, she brought the score to a tie at 4-4 and then again at 5-5 as the players again
held their own service games. The last two games proved to be extremely lucky for Paszek, because she was able to capitalize on a crucial mini break against Jankovic and Paszek held serve in the twelfth game, the lower ranked Paszek secure a 7-5 opening set
victory.
After conquering the opening round, Paszek was now comfortably settled in the match, while, Jankovic was initially leading 5-4 in the opening set but lost seven games in a go and eventually failed to clinch the opening set. Serving
for the second time was again Jankovic and she got off on the wrong side of the bed in the morning as she was unable to hold her first serve.
This boosted Paszek’s performance even more and she not only broke her adversary in the first but also in the third game to lead with a 3-0. She further increased the gap to 4-0 by holding her serve in the fourth game. On the other
hand, Jankovic made a comeback but it was too late, although, she did reduce the deficit to 2-4 with a hold and break. In the following four games the players were able to win on alternate games and by doing just that Paszek was able to secure a 6-4 victory.
The number ten seed Jankovic had won in Beijing in 2008 but today she performed extremely poorly and was unable to recover after the first set loss. It was her first loss in the pair's four meetings. Nevertheless, up next for Paszek
is Petra Cetkovska.
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