Tuesday 15 January 2013

Australian Open Day 2 Round-up: Serena's injury scare, Date-Krumm thumps Petrova, Monfils wins

Petra Kvitova
There were a lot of talking points on another busy day at the Australian Open.  Where do we start?!

In the womens draw, Serena Williams matched Sharapova's double bagel scoreline, but suffered an injury scare as she roller her ankle in a 6-0 6-0 thrashing over Edina Gallovits-HallVictoria Azarenka also prevailed in straight sets, but was certainly tested in the second set  of her 6-1 6-4 win over Monica NiculescuPetra Kvitova took thre sets to battle past Francesca Schiavone in an entertaining match out on the Margaret Court Arena.  The highest seed to fall was Sara Errani, who went down in two close sets to Carla Suarez Navarro.  Perhaps the biggest surprise though was a record-breaking win for Kimiko Date-Krumm over Nadia Petrova.  The 42-year-old becomes the oldest women to win a Grand Slam match and no-one could have called a 6-2 6-0 beatdown on the world number 12.

Also exiting the competition was Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who recovered a 5-1 third set deficit to 5-5 against Lesia Tsurenko before disappopintinlgy succumbing to a 7-5 3-6 7-5 defeat.  Pavlyuchenkova had defeated Tsurenko in the Brisbane semi-finals, but my second quarter-final tip would fall on day two.  Two seeded upsets that I did predict included a comfortable win for Jamie Hampton over Urzsula Radwanska and Annika Beck holding on to a tight three setter against Yaroslava ShvedovaCaroline Wozniacki overcame an error-strewn Sabine Lisicki in three sets, 2-6 6-3 6-3, meanwhile Laura Robson also won through against Melanie Oudin and will play the stand-out of the second rounders from the top half against fellow leftie, Kvitova.

In the mens draw, Roger Federer and Andy Murray both cruised into the second round with neither player losing more than 4 games in any of the six sets they won.  Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Juan Martin Del Potro also won in straight sets, the latter looked in crushing form with a 6-1 6-2 6-2 win over Adrian Mannarino.  In two of the first round highlights, Gael Monfils edged past Alexandr Dolgopolov in four sets; not surprisingly, the highlights made this match look like a lot of funTommy Haas also went out as he wasted a match point in a five set loss to Jarkko Nieminen, 8-6 in the fifth set.  Bernard Tomic was comfortable in victory and set up a second round meeting with Daniel Brands.

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