Week 1 - WTA International - Auckland, New Zealand

steven · Tennis legend

Week 1 - WTA International - Auckland, New Zealand

DavidC · Tennis legend

QR1:

Ekaterina Dzehalevich (BLR) d. Elena Baltacha 6-0 6-3

ouch!

seagull · Hall of fame

Christ thats a poor start!

steven · Tennis legend

Didn't see that coming ...

steven · Tennis legend

Main draw

L32: Anne Keothavong WR 60 v (WC) Mirjana Lucic (CRO) WR 433

Lucic has a career high of 32, but she achieved this way back in 1998 and was beaten in straight sets by Georgie Stoop and Amanda Elliott last summer, so this is as good a draw to start the year as Anne could have hoped for.

The Croat is probably best known for reaching the Wimbledon semis the following year and taking a set off Steffi Graf when she got there and for winning the AO doubles title (with Martina Hingis) in 1998 when she was 15, after becoming only the third player ever to win two junior slams by the age of 14 - Hingis and Capriati being the others to achieve this.

Personal problems (like this year's AO WC playoff winner Jelena Dokic, she had father problems) cut her career short in the early noughties but she returned in 2007 and is still only 26.

The winner of this match will play no. 8 seed Carla Suárez Navarro (ESP) WR 49 or Natalie Déchy.

-- Edited by steven at 00:43, 2009-01-03

freerider · Futures level

thats a nice season opener

DavidC · Tennis legend

QR1: (2) Ayumi Morita (JPN) d. Katie O'Brien 6-3 2-6 7-5

Superficially a very good scoreline by Katie's standard of late 2008, unfortunately marred by the fact that Katie was 5-3 up in the decider

wolf · Tennis legend

16 breaks in 29 games, 10 double faults and a choke at the end. Sounds like a typical Katie O'Brien match to me.

On the bright side what a fantastic draw for Anne, good chance of getting to the QFs here.

Oh and an article in The Times from Anne yesterday. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article5429593.ece

-- Edited by wolf at 11:32, 2009-01-03

S&V · Club Coach

Nice Times article, it would be great for her to establish herself a little higher this year.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Good draw for Anne, i can see her getting the QF at least here. Rybarikova in the QF if both get there is the tough match.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

dismal qualifying. Anne for the title! (Got to keep the most optimistic poster tag)

DavidC · Tennis legend

Sarah is in the doubles, but without Courtney (the last direct acceptance was 204, so they were unable to get in as a pair):

(1) Craybas/Erakovic vs. Llagostera Vives/Parra Santonja
Borwell/Muller vs. Krajicek/Zahlavova Strycova

Peter too · Tennis legend

Anne is scheduled to play 4th on Centre court and Sarah 3rd on court 6 tonight/tomorrow morning.

wolf · Tennis legend

Livestreams available at http://www.planetstream.tv/ or http://www.bet365.com/home/ or http://www.betfair.com/ if you fancy staying up to watch Anne.

Also she is blogging from Auckland for Tennishead http://www.tennishead.net/locker-room/anne-keothavong-blog/2009-01-04/anne-keothavong-blog-happy-new-year/

steven · Tennis legend

Sarah & partner had the worst possible start to the season, getting bagelled in the 1st set despite getting 78% of 1st serves in to their opponents' 47% in that set. Only winning 43% of points on 1st serve and 0% on 2nd was the problem.

A big improvement in the 2nd set saw them only face one bp (which they saved), while they forced 9 bps themselves and took two of them to win the set 7-5. They then prevailed in the tiebreak 10-7 - quite a turnaround!

Meanwhile, Anne was having her own serving disaster in the 1st set against Lucic, facing 7 bps in her first 3 service games and getting broken twice. Fortunately her opponent returned the compliment, with Anne forcing three bps early on and converting every time!

Fortunately Anne then started to find her range on serve and forced two set points with Lucic serving at 3-5. This time she couldn't convert either, but managed to hold onto her next service game to take the 1st set 6-4.