Timea Babos eases past Alize Lim to secure a 2nd round spot – OrtoLaakarit Open 2011
Second seed Timea Babos of Hungary tumbled over French Alize Lim in straight sets at the OrtoLaakarit Open 2011, a hard court tournament and a part of the 2011 ITF Women’s Circuit. She jolted down a 6-3, 6-3 victory over the 21-year-old
Frenchwoman to advance into the round of sixteen on Wednesday.
Just 18-year-old, Babos displayed exceptional skills and gave a top notch performance to breeze past the Frenchwoman, ranked 263rd in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, on their first duel. After overpowering Lim
in an hour and three minutes long marathon, the Hungarian got one step closer to her fourth year-to-date title.
The unstoppable Babos confidently entered the arena and after the French held her serve in the opening game, she went into rage mode to strike out next three games in a row. Later, the Hungarian bagged remaining serves and broke
Lim’s serve again in the last game, sealing the opener with a 6-3 success.
With her excellent defensive skills, Babos dusted away all five breakpoints faced. She also cashed in both breakpoint chances to her advantage. Regardless of formulating a lower first serve share of 51 percent as compared to the
Frenchwoman’s 64 percent, the Hungarian registered a superb 83 percent win on it.
The Hungarian youngster carried her winning ways in the final set and after breaking Lim’s opening serve, she went 3-0 up. Babos then hammered angled shots and plucked remaining serves, bagging the set with a 6-3 score line again.
Despite committing more double faults and slightly lower first serve share of 67 percent as opposed to Frenchwoman’s 70 percent, she registered a tremendous 73 percent win on it. In addition to this, the Hungarian brushed off all
three breakpoints came across and cashed in the only breakpoint opportunity to her advantage.
World number 155 Babos is currently enjoying a mind blowing season which saw her grabbing titles at Astana, Stuttgart-Vaihingen and Saguenay ITF events. Mustering her season further, she made semi-final berths at Kristinehamn,
La Coruna, Toronto and Bratislava ITF before entering these Finn courts in full confidence.
Next up for the Hungarian seed is Austria’s Nicole Rottmann who rallied past Slovene Masa Zec Peskiric in a three set thriller to reach this spot.
Top seeded Estonian Kaia Kanepi will be joining Babos in the round of sixteen after slaying Romanian Liana Ungur with a bagel in seventy-four minutes. She defended both breakpoints faced and converted four out of nine breakpoint
chances to her advantage to clinch the match with a 6-0, 6-3 victory.
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