Zvonareva makes winning start at WTA Championships
She’s been the nearly-woman of the WTA Tour in 2010, but Vera Zvonareva got her WTA Tour Championships campaign off to a winning start today against Jelena Jankovic.
In sizzling temperatures in Doha, the Wimbledon and US Open runner-up was too hot to handle for Jankovic in their opening round-robin match, running out the 6-3, 6-0 winner.
It was Zvonareva who created the first break-point opportunity of the match with a well-timed drop shot after Jankovic – who entered the tournament under a fitness cloud after battling illness in the lead-up to Doha – had run herself ragged to stay in the point with the conversion duly coming when the Serb meekly netted a forehand to hand her opponent a 2-1 lead.
In stark contrast to the effort Jankovic had to make to stay in her service games early in the match, Zvonareva breezed through her opening two service games without losing a point, as the Russian carried her strong recent form (she’s finished as runner-up in two of her last three tournaments, one of which was the US Open) into her opening round-robin match in Doha.
Six break point chances went begging for Zvonareva in the seventh game of the match as Jankovic dug deep to stay in the set, and did so, finally setting up the hold with trademark backhand winner down the line, with the second seed supplying the error to finish the game.
It seemed like it might have been worth the fight for Jankovic too, as she took the score from 40-15 to deuce in Zvonareva’s next service game but the 2008 WTA Championships runner-up managed to keep her emotions in check to hold,
The 26-year-old ultimately took the set on her fourth opportunity to do so in the next game, Jankovic sealing her fate with a double fault.
Jankovic finally found herself with her first chance to break for the match in the first game of the second set when Zvonareva sent an attempted smash into the net, but a Zvonareva winner off a swinging volley the next point put paid to that chance and the eighth seed wasn’t given a second opportunity to snatch the early advantage.
If that game had provided a faint ray of hope for team Jankovic, it was soon extinguished, with Zvonareva breaking to love the next game. That quickly became a 6-0 second set whitewash as the former world No. 1 struggled to cope with both her opponent’s more attacking tennis and the energy-sapping conditions on court.
It was ultimately the straightforward victory Zvonareva would have hoped for to open her account in a round-robin group that also includes US Open champion Kim Clijsters and last week’s Kremlin Cup winner Victoria Azarenka, but for Jankovic was probably the loss that marks the beginning of the end of her Doha title chances.
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