Saturday at the 2014 Nürnberger Versicherungscup was all about the second round of qualifying as 16 players fought to continue their way into the tournament’s main draw.
Among them was Katharina Gerlach, the 16-year old wildcard stunned the crowd yesterday by winning her first WTA level match, unfortunately the Cinderella story did not continue today as Czech Tereza Martincova proved to be too big of a hurdle for the young German.
Another local favorite fared much better, as Nina Zander is through to the qualifying finals, beating Sesil Karatantcheva in straight sets. Zander will be the only German player in the final qualifying round as Kristina Barrois lost her match against Petra Martic, Zander’s opponent in the qualifying final tomorrow.
The Croat showed a commanding performance in the first set but started to struggle with a wrist injury later in the match. Despite a late-match medial timeout, Martic managed to close the match out in straight sets.
Meanwhile, several main draw players were busy preparing for their start into the tournament on the practice courts. Caroline Garcia was one of them, the French youngster has been enjoying a fabulous season so far and will try to add yet another impressive clay result in Nürnberg, Garcia will be facing one of the qualifiers in her first-round match.
Also busy practicing was Eugenie Bouchard, the Australian Open semifinalist spent several hours on the court, working hard to hopefully improve her somewhat lackluster clay results so far this season.
The four qualifying finals are scheduled for tomorrow morning as main draw action at the 2014 Nürnberger Versicherungscup kicks off in the afternoon.