Patty Schnyder spoke of retirement after losing in the first round of the Australian Open last month, but she responded by upsetting the seedings at the Dubai Open on Tuesday.
Schnyder’s 4-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 win over former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic was her first of a year which has been blighted by bronchitis and other health problems.
Now the 32-year-old was a canny revelation. She recovered from a set and 1-3 down with loopy left-handed forehand drives and changes of pace, which together began to gnaw at the 14th-seeded Ivanovic’s confidence.
Photo: Reuters
“It feels great to win, especially after what I’ve been through,” the former world No. 7 from Switzerland said. “She was taking the ball early and hitting it hard. I started to find my footwork a bit. I was kind of slow, but I hung in there.”
Schnyder was also the more consistent player. She gained the first mini-break in the tiebreak by inducing the dangerous but inconsistent Ivanovic to pull a forehand wide and then attacked a moderate second serve to go two mini-breaks up.
Ivanovic responded with a lengthy argument about a line decision with the umpire, while some of the crowd bellowed “out.”
Photo: AFP
The official appeared to refuse to call for the Hawkeye replay system because Ivanovic continued a rally before deciding to make her appeal. Replays suggested that Schnyder’s deep return had hit the line in any case.
After Schnyder went on to take the tiebreak 7-2 she gained increasing momentum, breaking serve immediately in the third set and recovering from 15-40 down in the sixth game to reach 4-2.
The match was effectively over when Ivanovic served two successive double faults to concede another break, another indication of fragile self-belief.
Photo: Reuters
It was a particularly disappointing setback for the talented, glamorous but enigmatic Serb, who has just parted with Antonio van Grichen and decided to tour without a coach.
Schnyder will now play Zheng Jie, the former Wimbledon semi-finalist from China, who needed three sets to get past Kristina Barrois, a German qualifier.
Zheng was joined in the second round by compatriot Peng Shuai, who followed two wins in the qualifying competition with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 success against Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US.
Another seed to depart was the 13th-rated Petra Kvitova, who won the Paris Open by beating US and Australian Open champion Kim Clijsters on Sunday.
The Czech lost two tiebreak sets to Ayumi Morita, a Japanese qualifier, and was joined at the exit by another jaded-looking champion from two days previously.
That was Daniela Hantuchova, who won the Pattaya Open, but who had little energy left with which to trouble Anna Chakevetadze in a meeting between two former top 10 players.
The Russian trampled through 6-1, 6-3 to earn a meeting with top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, who could regain the world No. 1 ranking from Clijsters this week.
RMK CHAMPIONSHIPS
AP, MEMPHIS, Tennessee
Andy Roddick beat Richard Berankis of Lithuania 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the opening round of the RMK Championships on Tuesday.
The two-time winner in Memphis will face Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic in the second round.
Roddick, playing for the first time since the Australian Open, had plenty of unforced errors, but produced 23 aces with his strong serve.
Defending champion and fifth seed Sam Querrey of the US opened with a 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 victory over Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin, snapping a three-match winless streak.
Querrey had lost first-round matches in Sydney, Melbourne and San Jose to start the year and had dropped six straight since mid-October.
Earlier, No. 2 seed Mardy Fish of the US beat Russia’s Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-1, 7-5. Fish skipped last week’s SAP Open because a thyroid condition was bothering him.
Among those joining Fish in the second round were James Blake of the US, who beat Ricardo Mello of Brazil, 6-4, 6-3, and 2009 finalist Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic, who beat German Benjamin Becker 6-4, 6-2.
Croatia’s Ivan Dodig, who won his first ATP World Tour event two weeks ago in Croatia, beat Germany’s Rainer Schuettler 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
In second-round matches on the women’s side, the Cellular South Cup, No. 7 seed Renata Voracova of the Czech Republic was eliminated by Russia’s Ksenia Pervak, 6-1, 6-1.
Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia beat Britain’s Anne Keothavong, a Memphis semi-finalist the previous two years.
The only seeded players remaining in the field are No. 3 Melanie Oudin and No. 6 Rebecca Marino.
BUENOS AIRES OPEN
Reuters, BUENOS AIRES
Argentine former world No. 20 Jose Acasuso, back from an injury plagued year that led to his ranking dropping to 256, upset Alexandr Dolgopolov in the Buenos Aires Open first round on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian seventh seed had come into the tournament, third of four on the Latin American clay-court circuit, in good form having reached the Australian Open quarter-finals and the final of last week’s Brazil Open.
Acasuso, playing his first match of the year, never let the 22-year-old settle, breaking serve early in both sets to open leads he never relinquished to win 6-2, 6-4.
Top seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro, the world No. 13 fresh from beating Dolgopolov to lift his second Brazil title on Saturday, cruised through 6-1, 6-2 against Argentine qualifier Pablo Galdon.
Home favorite David Nalbandian, the third seed, beat Italy’s Potito Starace 6-4, 6-4, but the match of the day was Stanislas Wawrinka’s three-set tussle with Carlos Berlocq.
The 28-year-old Argentine gave the third-seeded Swiss world No. 15 a run for his money, making the most of his far greater familiarity with the clay surface, before Wawrinka won 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
The Swiss, whose game was riddled with unforced errors, battled back from 3-0 down in the first set and then faced an uphill struggle at 5-0 down in the second, saving three set points, before losing it.
Regularly struggling with length, but delighting the crowd with brilliant backhand shots, he was always on top in the decider, but was still pushed hard by his feisty opponent.
OPEN 13
AP, MARSEILLE, France
Defending champion Michael Llodra and former champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga both won their first-round matches at the Open 13 on Tuesday.
The sixth-seeded Tsonga, who won the indoor tournament in Marseille two years ago, served 10 aces as he thrashed fellow Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-1, 6-2. Tsonga next faces Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine.
Eighth-seeded Llodra had a tougher match, triumphing 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 against Julien Benneteau in another all-French match.
Llodra had 10 aces and seven double faults and next plays Germany’s Tobias Kamke, who routed Dutch player Thomas Schoorel 6-0, 6-2.
In other first-round matches, Nicolas Mahut of France beat Russia’s Andrey Kumantsov 6-2, 6-0, Croatia’s Marin Cilic beat Switzerland’s Stephane Bohli 6-7 (6/8), 6-3, 6-2, and Andreas Seppi of Italy beat Dutchman Robin Haase 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (7/2).
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