Urszula Radwanska cruises through first round of BMW Malaysian Open 2011
Wildcard Urszula Radwanska of Poland eased her way into the second round of the BMW Malaysian Open 2011 by defeating Japanese Junri Namigata on Monday.
The 20-year-old Polish outclassed her experienced opponent in straight sets 6-1, 6-3 in barely 53 minutes. Her gameplay showed colours of her elder sister, the world number 10 Agnieszka Radwanska.
“I was pretty nervous before and during the match, though I am happy that I am playing here as it is really nice here,” said the winner in her post match press conference. “I want to emulate my sister Agnieszka’s success, though I
hope to go about it my own way.”
It was a serve-dominated contest with the Polish youngster exhibiting great accuracy. She delivered 75 per cent of her first serves on target with the Japanese competitor following her with 66 per cent.
The Japanese failed to hold her nerve in the beginning and lost her momentum early. She never went near to break her opponent’s serve in the whole match and missed plenty of easy opportunities. She was also poor on returning, securing
just 12 of 44 return points.
The Pole also frittered away some chances but her weak opponent gave her a lot of opportunities to recover. The Polish had eight break opportunities in the match and converted only half of them.
The opener gave no real challenge to Radwanska as her opponent looked totally out of sorts. The Japanese committed piles of unforced errors with her errant strokes, including four double-faults. The young Pole exploited the loopholes
in her opponent’s baseline defence and cracked plenty of winners down the line. Radwanska won 25 out of the total 36 points in the first set while she broke Namigata’s serve thrice. The Japanese eventually surrendered the first set to Radwanska at 6-1.
Namigata posted a better performance in the second set, lifting her first serve ratio to an impressive 77 per cent. The Pole had the identical serve figure but she won 80 per cent of her serve points in the set.
The Japanese tried to match the pace of her opponent but she crumbled under the pressure exerted by Radwanska. The Polish wildcard struck one serve break in the second set and took momentum from it to seal the victory in the first
round of the event.
Radwanska will be facing eighth seed Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia in the second round of the tournament.
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