Yanina Wickmayer overcomes Angelique Kerber in the first round of Internazionali BNL d'Italia
World number 24, Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium had to toil hard before she defeated Angelique Kerber of Germany in the opening round of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, being played at the Foro Italico in Rome, Italy on Monday. Wickmayer
outplayed the lucky loser from Germany in an enthralling three-set matchup, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, taking almost two hours of play to reach the second round of the $2,050,000 WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) tournament.
The back-and-forth affair witnessed an exciting game of pro tennis, with the two contestants straining hard to take the better of their opponent. The German had an amazing start to the contest and bagged the opening set with ease.
However, Wickmayer made a tremendous comeback to clinch the following set and then carried on her momentum to win the contest by taking the third set as well.
The 21-year-old Belgian had some serious problems with the angled cross-court strokes of her left-handed opponent. Wickmayer failed to anticipate the ground strokes from Kerber in the opener and dropped serve three times. She hung
in for quite a while, breaking the German’s serve two times but she couldn’t collect sufficient points to outplay Kerber. Despite of an ordinary first serve precision of 50 percent, Kerber stung three break points and reeled off 35 of 63 total points to close
out the first set at 6-4.
A dramatic momentum swing took place in the following set, as the Belgian powered her way back into the game. Wickmayer regrouped quickly in the second set and came out firing at her opponent. She fully capitalized upon the three
double faults of the German and cracked in an early serve break to lead 2-0 in the second set. Her 74 per cent first serve proved deadly for her opponent and the Belgian captured all the second serve points she had in the set. Her second serve break in the
eighth game left Wickmayer serving for the set and she did so at 6-3, levelling the contest at 1-1.
Once getting back her flare in the second set, Wickmayer never looked backed and kept winning crucial points in the decisive set as well. She crafted three chances to break the Germen serve but could cash in just one opportunity
to race to victory at 6-3 in the third set. She will face the 13th seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia in the next stage of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia on Wednesday. Ivanovic made it to the second round at Rome as her opening round competitor, Nadia
Petrova of Russia retired from the game after losing the first set to the Serb.
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