Tuesday at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix had a major upset in store, as last year’s finalist Ana Ivanovic is out of the tournament, following a straight-set loss against Carolina Garcia. The Frenchwoman has proven to be Ivanovic’s kryptonite this season, scoring her third consecutive victory against the popular Serbian in just two months time, following wins in Monterrey & Indian Wells earlier this year.
The first-set tiebreak proved to be a turning point in the match, as Ivanovic failed to convert several match points, allowing Garcia to take the first set. Garcia never looked back and Ivanovic’s errors started piling up in the second set, sending the Serbian packing.
Garbine Muguruza, Carla Suarez Navarro & Lucie Safarova made a much smoother transition to clay than Ivanovic, winning their first-round encounters in the Porsche Arena on Tuesday.
While Muguruza & Safarova got there in straight sets, Suarez Navarro had her hands full with Evgeniya Rodina. The Russian had fought her way through qualifying and was determined to make her stay in Stuttgart last, forcing a third set against the Spanish clay specialist.
While first round play was underway, second seed Simona Halep & third seed Petra Kvitova met with media and answered the many questions of the tennis journalists.
Kvitova comes to Stuttgart after her successful Fed Cup encounter that marked her return to tennis following a month-long hiatus due to exhaustion and judging by her bubbly demeanor today, the two-time Wimbledon champion seems to be ready for competition again.
Wednesday will be a big day for all the local fans, since the three big German names in the draw are all due to kick off their Porsche Tennis Grand Prix campaign. The top seeds, on the other hand, get another day off as Sharapova, Halep, Kvitova & Wozniacki aren’t due to play their first match before Thursday.
Jimmie48, I see Garcia retweeted a couple of your photos yesterday! 🙂 Great job!
HaHa garcia and Kvitova doing same pose with the mic in their own way Petra looks so relaxed hope this brings consistency to her game
I watched the entire Garcia/Ivanovic match, and many of Caroline’s previous matches over the past year, and do not think that Caroline beating Ana is an upset.
Garcia is faster, has much more power off of her double-handed backhand wing, and serves more effectively.
Theirs was a high quality, hard fought match, and I think Garcia will be threatening the Top 5 shortly.
Even better than Garcia is Muguruza, who is taller, just as fast, serves better, and ventures to net more. A possible future #1 and Grand Slam winner.
Ana lacks consistency this year. I’m not sure if it is “interest” or “confidence issue”. I started noticing it at Monterrey this year. Also, she did not wear the red dress. Simona did. Maybe she’ll wear it in Madrid. The purple dress seems to have a bad omen on her performances.