Slovakia’s world No.45 Dominika Cibulkova scored a victory of her career today in windy Doha with a straight set win over great champion and world No.7 Venus Williams. Final score was 6-3 6-3.
I expected an interesting match, but for Cibulkova to break hard-serving Williams four times, and hold all except for one of her service games, that was beyond my imagination.
The 18-year-old Cibulkova, the second best Slovakia’s WTA player, was confident, strong, well-adapted to the windy weather, and made few unforced errors. Williams, on the other hand, made too many unforced errors, and quite surprisingly, served no aces. Also, Cibulkova used almost all of her chances, and wasted only two out of six break points, which was not the case with Williams.
At the Qatar Total Open, Cibulkova also made other two significant victories, over world No.39 Lucie Safarova in the first round and over ninth seed and world No.12 Patty Schnyder in the second.
In the quarterfinals, Cibulkova will face Agnieszka Radwanska who advanced without playing her third round match as top seed Ana Ivanovic withdrew from the tournament due to ankle injury she suffered yesterday.
I saw Cibulkova play in Charleston last year. She came close to taking out Golovin, and she was very impressive. She qualified, in fact, by taking out Shvedova, the top qualifying seed. This doesn’t surprise me.
Yeah, I also watched her before, and she was also amazing. In Fed Cup, against Jelena Jankovic, who was injured though, Cibulkova displayed great tennis. I knew she could take Williams out, but I didn’t expect her to do it so decisively. After all, Cibulkova lost to injured Jankovic with a close 7-5 1-6 9-7 score.