Russian Vera Zvonareva and Victoria Azarenka of Belarus highlighted Saturday's first-round winners at the $4.5 million Madrid Open.Victoria Azarenka, ranked No.5 in the world and seeded No.4 in Madrid, took just 49 minutes to beat Vera Dushevina in her first match of the tournament, 6-0 6-0. Several of the games were close, with both players holding seven break points in the match - but Azarenka shone through on the big points, winning six of those seven opportunities while Dushevina went zero for seven.
"I felt very good out there," Azarenka commented after the match. "It was a bit cold and windy but I managed to play well in those conditions anyway."
Azarenka won back-to-back titles in Miami and Marbella in early April, but she was forced to retire during her first match in Stuttgart due to a shoulder injury. She seemed in perfect health Saturday. "My shoulder is good," the 21-year-old Belarusian said. "It was a smart decision to take a break, so I'm happy."
Vera Zvonareva and Samantha Stosur both struggled against tricky clay court veterans but managed to move through as well. No.2 seed Zvonareva was the first of the pair to advance, getting past Patty Schnyder, 6-2 1-6 6-2.
No.10 seed Agnieszka Radwanska, No.13 seed Andrea Petkovic, No.16 seed Petra Kvitova and unseeded players Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Dominika Cibulkova, Jarmila Gajdosova and Agnes Szavay also won first round matches. Cibulkova pulled off the only upset of the day, taking out No.12 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-3 6-2. Gajdosova had the narrowest win of them all, saving two match points down 6-5 in the third set to beat Maria Kirilenko, 7-5 3-6 7-6(4) - the match featured 25 aces: Gajdosova 15, Kirilenko 10.
24 comments:
Clefairy, I gather Angry Bird is one of your favorite players am I wrong?
Divapova just lost the first set 2-6 to Rus who is ranked 99.
Pennetta lost the first set 3-6
Peng and Schiavone going at it 5-5 in the first set.
Well Carlos, The Angry Bird is not my favourite player, but I do like her! Ahaha, is it that obvious?
Franny won the first set 7-5 and Dani won hers 6-3
Quite a few post about her.
Pennetta lost in straight sets.
Dani H. won the match in straights.
Peng tie at 4 with Schiavone, second set.
Schiavone won 7-5 7-6(2) the match lasted two hours.
Divapova won in three sets and another two hour match for her.
I said in a previous post that it was the first time this season for Pennetta, Peng, and Divapova playing on clay, and it showed. The moral of the story: Hit the clay before one of the most important tournaments in the clay season.
Was going to move my post to this new thread but seems almost everything has already been covered!
Now I need to scoreboard 'root' for Goerges and against Bunny.
Julia has some work to do. She just lost the first set 7-6.
The Super STAR Julia Goerges has come back from down a set to clean Kanepi's 'clock' 6-7, 6-1,6-4!
WOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
The Imbecile is up 5-0 in the first against Mattek-Sands.
Vesnina is up against Mirza 4-3 in the first set.
Lastly, the high profile doubles battle featuring Princess vs. The Duchess in underway!
Bethanie won the second set 6-4 Yessssssssss! She broke The Imbecile now leads 3-1 in third.
The doubles battle, The Duchess team won the first set 6-4 over The Princess Team.
On related news The Big Stuffed Bunny won. Boooooo!
Bethanie took down The Fist Pumping Imbecile Booooyah! If I could I would do cartwheels.
I got a lot predictions wrong but the one that I got right was Rezai going down to a qualifier. Any qualifier would have beaten Rezai. This garbage player last week got a wild card and the number one seed and lost in the second round to a player who is ranked 497! Just for that putrid showing she should be ban from the top 50.
The Princess/Angry Bird Won the doubles match. Caps321 are you happy with the result?
Carlos, I can't really be happy when one of my favorites beats the other!
On a couple side notes: Makarova is up 6-4 losing the second 1-2 against Wiki.
Last but certainly not least, Julia is playing doubles with Cornet-Loita. Which is on the scoreboard but still 0-0.
Great news concerning that Fist Pumper.. Only if she would just retire from the game and stop embarrassing herself!
Would sure like to see this Julia/Alize doubles match. Looks like their about to take an early exit!
Plus Makarova dispatched Wiki 6-4, 6-4.
Vania King works over Petrova 6-1, 7-6! I have to wonder if poor Petrova was wearing one of those dresses 2X too small... hahaha She needs a better deal with her sponsor.
I know what you mean Caps321 is hard to take sides when two favorites are going at it and the results are never satisfying. We can hope The Princess/Angry Bird win the doubles title and The Duchess makes a deep run in this tournament.
Petrova is having a horrible year, wondering if her best tennis has passed her by.
Wicki is coming off an injury so I'll give her a pass.
Moi Lolita doesn't strike me as a good doubles player.
I still say Divapova is getting upset in the second round. She didn't do anything today to convience me otherwise.
My prefictions have been horrible :P but I'm really enjoying this tournament; and the fact that The Imbecile lost in the first round makes it sweeter.
Ah, I didn't realize Petrova was 28 and going to be 29 next month. I thought she was around 25. Yeah, you could be right concerning her lackluster play.
I agree with Cornet not looking like a good doubles player. Hopefully Julia G. will figure out someone a little better to tag team with next.
I also agree Makarova should take out Divapova. She said herself about having trouble playing lefty's. IMO, the game has sorta passed Sharapova by in terms of her 'power' not meaning as much as it used to.
If Julia & Bunny make it to the third round and Bunny takes the loss it will be icing on the Imbecile cake.
Ha, Peer was already beaten before I even woke up! 6-3 6-2
Divapova won the first set 6-3 but is down 4-1 in the second.
Divapova wins, booooooooooooooooo.
Petko is playing now and is down 5-2 in the first.
Anyone know what happened to the Safina first round match? I have no record of a match even being played yet.
If I can channel Carlos for a minute.. Petko isn't doing any dancing after getting paddled by #70 in the world Parra Santonja 6-2, 7-6.
In the first set Petko lost 6-2 and was thoroughly out played. Parra Santonja was hitting very deep and Petko seemed to be kicking back and waiting for the error that didn't come.
In the second set it was an all out battle in which Petko was actually up 5-4 at one point. But, ended up losing it 7-6.
I'm finally here Caps321, missed everything.
I was trying to find out about Safina with no luck.
Thank you for the info, now Petkovic is really on my bad side not only for the dancing but folding to The Big Bunny at home last week, and today's result is the confirmation.
Divapova: I have talk in the past about Divapova's shoulder injury which has been responsible for her game to fall a notch 1)Her injury was worse than anyone expected. 2)Her camp down played her injury and they still do. 3)I said this quite a few times before, after her shoulder injury she kept breaking down like an old car.4)In a couple of months she will turn 25, in tennis years she only has a couple of good tennis seasons, assuming no injuries. Right now looks like she is getting better but when I look at her shoulder, it gets tire as a tournament progresses. Just look as The Bunny and Angry Bird dispose of her at I.W.and Miami respectively. She is no longer a the top dominating player, everyone at any particular time have a chance to beat her. Almost all her tennis matches are around two hours or more and three sets when she wins. When Divapova loses is in straight sets.
I have to make a correction it was you Caps321 who predicted Cibulkova over Kuznetsova not the lovely Ms. Clefairy.
I also thought that Petrova 25! I am surprise she is 29. What I noticed was her game going south, I guess "tennis age" caught up with her.
One thing about The Bunny is that she is good in rematches. She destroyed Dokic in Memphis a couple of years ago after Dokic beat her in AO 09. Dismantle Schiavone at Rogers Cup last year after Schiavone busted her chops at RG 10. Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if she took down Gorgeous Julia. I hope not but it seems The Bunny studies her opponents to win rematches.
I know, long post. :P
wta rankings movers of note
Peer - Current - 13 - Previous - 11
Vinci - Current - 37 - Previous - 42
Medina Garrigues - Current - 42 - Previous - 61
Hradecka - Current - 52 - Previous - 66
Barrois - Current - 60 - Previous - 71
Benesova - Current - 65 - Previous - 44
Larsson - Current - 66 - Previous - 80
Halep - Current - 68 - Previous - 52
Kudryavtseva - Current - 69 - Previous - 77
Kerber - Current - 71 - Previous - 64
Safina - Current - 76 - Previous - 65
Cornet - Current - 80 - Previous - 69
Razzano- Current - 94 - Previous - 102
Saw this link earlier while searching google news for "Safina Madrid". Its an article about the Bunny and rehashes stuff we already know but has a few interesting and funny lines as well. Such as:
Wozniacki plays the kind of tennis now reserved for old ladies and English gardeners. Her game is dowdy. It’s boring. It’s not ready for prime time. (Cherry picked quote alert!)
http://tinyurl.com/3f4xaz8
Thanks once again for the info Caps321. Earlier I checked the rankings but I didn't realize it was Monday I didn't payed attention to it until I saw your post. :/
There was a lot of movement up and down, wow!
I checked the Americans -anyone else besides with the last name of Williams:
Bethanie: 41
Oudin: 89
McHale: 92
Coco: 93
Thank you for the article Caps321, I didn't like this article that much let me rephrase 1)The Stuffed Bunny plays an outdated style good enough to beat the cup cakes but not the big cheese. 2)Forgot to mention the "Melt down in Melbourne". 3)She can't belt the ball, period! 4)She won't pose semi-naked or naked until she is running out of fame/spot light. 5)Those players mentioned:
Dementieva: When you look up the word underachiever in a dictionary a photo of her appears in the definition. Also look up for riot inciter.
Dinara: Head case.
The F. P. Imbecile: Part time model wanna be, full time imbecile.
Kuznetsova: Legendary choker.
JJ: wrote the book, "How To Reach An Undeserving Number One Ranking".
The Bunny read JJ's book.
The article gets it right if The Bunny doesn't win RG 11 the criticism will get bigger and louder.
Thanks once again Caps.
test
Had to dump an entire post after trying twice. Something was getting caught in the spam filter. So, I've consolidated it below:
Safina won and Venina lost to Zvonareva. Matches that interest me:
Divapova vs. Cibulkova
Goerges vs. Safina
Azarenka vs. Parra Santonja
Aggie vs. Gajdosova
Bunny vs Jovanovski
You beat me to the punch Caps321.
I have:
Cibulkova over Divapova third is one is the charm, right?
Goerges over Safina. The Safina match ended past 1am Madrid time it will take its toll on Safina. BTW Why is WTA setting matches this late?
The Dutchess over Jarmilla
Angry Bird over Parra Santonja I hate dirt specialist, it seems they all come from Spain nowadays.
Bojana over the Bunny or at least she will give The Bunny a fit.
Bethanie over King.
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