World No.1 Serena Williams received a wildcard for the Internazionali BNL d’Italia and played and won her first match since claiming her fifth Australian Open title back in January. Serena had a first-round bye in Rome and in the second round the American defeated Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 7-6(2) 6-1, despite the long period without competitive tennis due to the knee injury.
The 20-year-old Bacsinszky was in command during the opening set, first with a 4-1 lead and then with a 5-3 lead. Bacsinszky even had three set points in the tenth game. However, Williams leveled at 5-5, and then forced a tiebreak which she won 7-2. That was pretty much the end of Bacsinszky.
Williams was victorious at the Italian Open in 2002 and followed it with her only Roland Garros title two weeks later.
Earlier in the day, Serena’s sister Venus took out another Swiss player from the tournament, world No.45 Patty Schynder. (photo: sr_cranks)
ANA BEAT AZA! What a great match! I enjoyed it a lot. She did make quite a few mistakes, but overall I think it was a great effort!
Cannot wait until her potential encounter with Elena! That will be a thriller!
Cheers Marija and the crew!
Bb, I didn’t watch the match, just a bit of the livescores, and it’s amazing that Ana won. Hehe especially that she finished the match by breaking Vika’s serve.
Excuse me! Whats that got to do with Serena beating Timea??
Kindly desist from posting Ana comments on a NON Ana story! It confuses me lol !! 😉
Tony, I’ve just added the Ana story to the blog so all the commentators, including me, are kindly asked to move and post their Ana related comments there. 🙂
Haha! Wasn’t really complaing Marija, you’ll get used to my silly sense of humour! 😉
YAYUHHHH! I watched it live online, serena seemed to struggle alot, but i suppose thats normal since she hasnt played in 4 months