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Stosur Exits Early While Sharapova Dominates on Day Two in Melbourne
By Erik Gudris
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Photo Credit: Mark Peterson / Corleve
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(January 17, 2012) On Day Two of the Australian Open, players had to battle the hot, windy conditions as well as their opponents. But for one woman, the battle against homegrown expectation proved too much.
The pressure on No. 6 seed Australia’s Sam Stosur to win her home Slam may have been too heavy for the current U.S. Open Champion in her opening round match against Romania’s Sorana Cirstea. Despite being an underdog to the Australian, Cirstea came out playing inspired tennis, hitting winners from all sides of the court while Stosur never looked comfortable on Rod Laver Arena despite the cheers of the 15,000 plus fans urging her on. After losing the first set in a tiebreak, Stosur dropped serve in the opening game of the second set and looked completely deflated. Stosur managed to lift her game to break Cirstea back, but too many unforced errors from the Aussie’s racquet, 31 in all, sealed her fate as Cirstea held her ground to pull off the biggest upset of the tournament with a 7-6, 6-3 win.
Things weren’t quite so dramatic earlier for No. 2 seed Petra Kvitova who started off slow against Russia’s Vera Dushevina who is probably more known of late for catching the bouquet at Elena Dementieva’s wedding. After dropping the first two games, Kvitova then reeled off sixteen straight points to jump out to a 4-2 lead before eventually claiming the first set 6-2. After that, it was clear sailing for the Wimbledon champion as she notched an impressive 6-2, 6-0 win.
Another Russian, No. 4 seed Maria Sharapova, had no problems against Gisela Dulko as the 2008 champion claimed a convincing 6-1, 6-0 victory while No. 7 seed Vera Zvonareva overcame a determined Alexandra Dulgheru 7-6, 6-7, 6-3 in just over three hours. No. 18 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova fought off Chanelle Scheepers to claim a 6-3, 3-6 6-0 win. Kuznetsova will now face American Sloane Stephens in the next round.
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