by Gerhard Grundhammer

 

Vera Zvonareva def. Vera Douchevina 6-2 and 6-1

It was the first match today on center court, and both players had to face the difficult situation of playing in front of about 50 spectators at a stadium which fits 15000 people in. Douchevina had the better start into the match and captured an early 2-0 lead, but then Zvonareva was slowly waking up.

She hold for 1-2 because her shots were a bit more powerful as before and though she did not hit the corners properly she still forced her opponent to run and to produce some unforced errors now. The re-break was rather lucky for Vera, but the more spectators were filling the ground, the better Zvonareva played, and it finally was a pleasure to watch the 18 year old girl from Moscow playing.

She played agressive from the baseline, hit some good winning shots, some great drop shots, even had a few successful net attacks, and if she got under pressure, it was still very likely that she could take profit from an unforced error of Douchevina.

She took 6 straight games to recover from 0-2 down, and won the first set after 35 minutes with 6-2.

Set 2 was not much different, beside there has been much more spectators. Vera won her 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th game in a row to take a comfortable 5-0 lead and converted her first match point after 56 minutes to win 6-2 and 6-1.