The last match of today’s play at the $700,000 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart was an upset of defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova. The third-seeded Russian lost to China’s Li Na 6-3 7-5 in the second round.
The only other second-round match that took place on Wednesday happened to be an upset as well, with unseeded Shahar Peer of Israel defeating fifth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-3 6-7(4) 6-2. Peer had a match point in the second set, but wrapped up victory in the third to upset the Pole who had added to the slump of Ana Ivanovic in the first round.
No.4 seed Jelena Jankovic, No.6 seed Victoria Azarenka, No.7 seed Samantha Stosur, No.8 seed Yanina Wickmayer and unseeded wildcard Justine Henin were all victorious in their first-round matches.
Kuznetsova’s opponent in the last year’s Stuttgart final, Dinara Safina, is in action on Thursday and will play her first match since the Australian Open. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)
Sveta was really poor, seemed to think was against the law in Germany to cross the baseline, just stood back and tried to keep the ball in play and hoping that Na Li would make a mistake!
Ok, she hit a few good winners down the line but they were few and far between. If thats the way she intends to play then a) her coach is not earning his money, he should be telling her where she’s going wrong (she ought to know herself tbh!) and b)she’s going to win nothing and quickly fall down the rankings as she has a LOT of points to defend in the next couple of months.
Na Li on the other hand was aggressive and looked to hit winners whenever she got the chance (which was regularly!)and thoroughly deserved to win the game.