Novak Djokovic kept his 100 percent record at the China Open yesterday, overcoming late resistance from Vasek Pospisil to win 6-3, 7-5, while Petra Kvitova powered through her women’s singles match.
The top seed was playing at his dominating best in the first set, breaking serve in the third and final games. Yet the Serb lost his trademark composure midway through the second set, screaming to himself in anger as he failed to capitalize on a break point in the fourth game.
Canadian Pospisil was in the ascendency three games later, drawing level at 40-40 with a brilliant cross-court shot. The 41st-ranked player in the world went on to force break-point and took the game following an incredible 26-shot rally, but his fightback was in vain when a relieved Djokovic won the next game, punching the air with delight and screaming as he made it 5-5.
Photo: AFP
The world No. 1 then took the next two games as he closed in on victory and moments later was dancing to the applause of the crowd. Djokovic is bidding for his fifth title in Beijing, an event he has won every year since 2009 apart from 2011, when he did not play.
In the women’s competition, world No. 3 Kvitova opened her campaign to win a second consecutive event in China in commanding style. The Czech player defeated home-crowd favorite Peng Shuai 6-4, 6-2 in her first match since her victory at the Wuhan Open last week.
Peng took a 2-0 lead before the Wimbledon champion stormed back, winning 12 of the next 16 games and wrapping up the match in just 66 minutes.
Peng had difficulty dealing with her left-handed opponent’s powerful serves, which Kvitova said she thought was her “advantage.”
Kvitova will now meet 16th seed Venus Williams for a tricky third-round match.
The 24-year-old Czech confirmed her place at the WTA Finals in Singapore with the Wuhan title, and yesterday, world No. 8t Caroline Wozniacki was hoping to do the same, but crashed out in her Beijing opener at the hands of Australian Samantha Stosur.
Stosur, the 2011 US Open winner, has had a miserable run in China lately, but the world No. 21 was the more composed as the two players battled in a tense second-set tie break, saving five set points against her Danish opponent as she wrapped up a 6-4, 7-6 (11/9) victory.
In the late action, Russian Maria Sharapova beat Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 7-6(3), while Frenchwoman Alize Cornet outplayed Lauren Davis of the US 6-2, 6-1.
Most of yesterday’s matches were postponed, including those between Tomas Berdych and Viktor Troicki; Grigor Dimitrov and Pablo Andujar; Angelique Kerber and Svetlana Kuznetsova, and all the doubles.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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