On day two of the Qatar Total Open in Doha, Marion Bartoli lost in the second round (in the first round she had a bye), while Agnes Szavay and Sania Mirza left the tournament in the first round.
France’s Marion Bartoli still hasn’t managed to replay her fantastic performance from Wimbledon where she was the runner-up. At the Qatar Total Open, the eighth seed lost in straight sets 6-2 6-3 to 17-year-old Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, who is seriously making her way to the top. Wozniacki is one of the young players to watch. Taking into account her attractiveness, her fruitful tennis career is likely to be accompanied with marketing success. Actually, Wozniacki already did a commercial for Sony Ericsson. Fellow blogger Juan has a nice little article about Wozniacki’s achievements and future career prospects.
Agnes Szavay hasn’t been consistent this season, failing to live up to the expectations, at least by now. Although the world No.18 reached Paris finals, in all the other tournaments she played this season she lost in the first round. The Hungarian, seeded thirteenth at the Qatar Total Open, lost in the first round to Japan’s Ai Sugiyama 7-6 6-0.
India’s Sania Mirza, ranked 32nd in the world, had to retire in her match against Belorussian world No.50 Olga Govortsova. Mirza was a better player in the first half of the match, but Govortsova refused to give up. Mirza lost a few of crucial points which would have enabled her to close out the match, and cramps began to trouble the Indian since. It was clear that if Govortsova managed to win the second set, she would become a huge favorite to win the match, having in mind Mirza’s troubles with the cramps. And that’s exactly what happened. Mirza retired after the fifth game of the third set. Govortsova next faces top seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia.
