Third seed Petra Kvitova’s Madrid Open title defense was stopped already in the second round and the responsible is qualifier Lucie Hradecka, Kvitova’s good friend and countrywoman, who won the match 6-4 6-3 to score her first Top 10 victory.
Even though officially this is the first time that Hradecka beats Kvitova, Hradecka revealed that she had defeated her before at the end of last year in some club matches, while they’ve also played a lot of sparring games for Fed Cup.
The world No.105 Hradecka’s plan to concentrate on her serve worked well, and even though she had 4% less points won on first serve, in the department of points won on second serve she was much better than Kvitova – 54% to Kvitova’s 25%. In addition, she was much more successful in conversion of break points, taking Kvitova’s serve a total of five times.
Hradecka, whose three of four WTA runner-up finishes came on clay, will play Ekaterina Makarova in the third round, after the Russian upset compatriot Maria Kirilenko 6-4 6-4.
Also in the second round, fourth seed and new world No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska ended Sara Errani’s 16-match claycourt winning streak quickly, 6-0 6-1. Radwanska will next face Roberta Vinci who also didn’t waste time in the second round, eliminating Yanina Wickmayer 6-1 6-2.
In the third round, top seed Victoria Azarenka beat seed No.13 Ana Ivanovic 6-4 6-4, eighth seed Li Na conquered seed No.12 Angelique Kerber 7-5 6-4, and fifth seed Samantha Stosur won over Petka Cetkovska 6-3 6-2. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)
The next round already looks to be so interesting with major names coming out. With slight complaints coming from just a few players, I think the new blue clay court has also been a success.
Agree on the next round, everyone seems to be in a good disposition, Sharapova vs. Williams can be pretty interesting.
On the other hand, I definitely do not agree about the surface, I think that this smurf clay is a disaster. The big players are all complaining, to the point that Nadal, who lost in the 3 round (Nadal! On the clay!) said that either they change it or he wan’t come next year. Djokovic said that it’s so slippery, that you should play in the foodball shoes. And when you watch them playing, you can easily see they’re having troubles with moving and it can be quite dangerous. The ones that seem to have less problem are those who are strong on hard, like Sharapova, who said that in her opinion it’s only a matter of getting used to that particular surface. But Sharapova is hardly a reference for clay, since we all know she doesn’t like clay and she doesn’t move so good on that surface, doesn’t really slide naturally.
I think that blue clay was a really bad idea, I read that many players were worried about getting injured. This marketing gimmick has to stop next season.
Marine, have you read that Djokovic said that you had to be Chuck Norris to be able to play on the blue clay? 🙂
After his yesterday match, Djokovic said that the winner of this tournament will be simply the player who manage to stay uninjuried. And I’m afraid he’s right about it, when you watch some players, it can be scary – they keep slipping, falling. Even those that are usually great on clay are completely unable to move correctly – I don’t know if you guys heard Nadal’s yesterday ranting. He was trying to be nice and his usual self, repeating “he was better, he played better”, but in between, he couldn’t stop complaining ;)As for Nole, after his first much, he said on his FB account “next time I have to bring skates instead of shoes” 😉
Maggie, you know what I was thinking as well, in the end somebody WILL win the tournament, it’s not impossible to win it 🙂