At the Family Circle Cup, after a dramatic 6-4 5-7 6-4 first-round victory over Melanie Oudin, in which Jelena Jankovic fell down and almost broke her back or her leg when her foot got stuck in the clay to finally win in a just five minutes less than three hours, on her fifth match point, having saved 17 of 22 break points in the match, the ninth-seeded Serb played another three-setter, this time against Caroline Garcia of France. There was another fall on clay for JJ and two match points against her, before she, after losing the first set 5-7, squeezed through the second-set tiebreak 12-10, and won the third set 6-3. Next for Jankovic will be Jessica Pegula, who upset eighth seed Mona Barthel 7-6(4) 6-1 to reach the third round.
In other Wednesday’s second-round matches, the highest seed in action, No.2 Caroline Wozniacki, lost just nine points in seven service games to defeat Silvia Soler-Espinosa 6-1 6-1 and will next play Andrea Petkovic. Third seed Samantha Stosur saved all five break points to beat Marina Erakovic 6-1 6-2 and is awaiting Eugene Bouchard, who eliminated friend Laura Robson in the second round. Besides the 16th-seeded Robson, the only other seed that lost on Wednesday was Sabine Lisicki, who fell to Mallory Burdette 3-6 7-6(5) 7-5. Venus Williams, Lucie Safarova and Julia Goerges also advanced. (via Women Who Serve)
Rough wins, but a win is a win. We shall see how the match against Pegula plays out. JJ does have the ranking advantage but that doesn’t mean anything.
Thanks for the link, Marija.
P!nky, Pegula imploded against a very in-form JJ.
P!nky, the third match turned out to be much smoother and she didn’t fall once.
Diane, it’s my pleasure.