After a first-round bye, Belinda Bencic opened her St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy campaign in the second round against Annika Beck and the Swiss prevailed in a tight two-setter that lacked both excitement and good-quality tennis.
Serve holds were a rare sight in this match. The encounter began with three straight breaks, that all came on the first break point chance. In the first set of the slow and unexciting match, Beck was the one who had a slight advantage. However, the German didn’t capitalize on the fact that she served for the set and that her opponent constantly had to claw back to stay alive, and Bencic sneaked away with the set in the tiebreak 7-6(3). Imagine, Beck won just 18% of points on second serve.
Although still error-prone, Bencic was more dominant in the second set and won it with a more decisive scoreline, 6-3. Bencic is the top seed at a WTA tournament for the first time, so it would’ve been really bad had she lost this match, and we can’t say that it couldn’t have happened. (photos: Jimmie48)
