I didn’t watch this match, but by the description of fellow tennis blogger Diane, I see Jelena Jankovic survived almost a similar challenge in the second round of the Sony Ericsson Open to the one in the Australian Open first round (remember Tamira Paszek’s famous first match point against Jankovic?).
At the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, fourth seed Jankovic fought with every cell of her body against Sweden’s Sofie Arvidsson, ranked 63rd in the world. Jankovic was 1-5 in the third set, but broke her opponent twice to get to 5-all. Then it went to 6-all, and Jankovic found herself down 3-6 in the tiebreak. She then saved five match points, and at 9-10, broke Arvidsson, and won the match on her second match point. In the end, the score was 6-7 (7) 6-2 7-6 (9).
Jankovic will next face Czech world No.39 Lucie Safarova, who can be a tough opponent. I still remember their long encounter at last year’s Wimbledon, when Jankovic seemed hopeless, having no idea how to play against Safarova. In the end, however, the Serb won, because Safarova couldn’t keep her rhythm during a match that long.
Reminder: Sofie Arvidsson is having an excellent 2008 season. So far this year she defeated high-ranking players such as Elena Dementieva, Marion Bartoli and Anna Chakvetadze.
