Friday, March 26, 2010

Rain interrupts 2nd round play in Miami

What do you call someone who wins the first set, goes up 3-1 in the second and 3-0 in the third, and loses the match? Tsvetana Pironkova. How many times have we seen Pironkova blow a significant lead? She did it again today against Miami 2nd seed Caroline Wozniacki, who had to fight to the end to win this second round match.

It rained on and off for hours in Miami today, and a lot of matches were interrupted. The match between 24th Alisa Kleybanova and Sara Errani was suspended because of darkness; I assume one of the courts doesn't have very good lighting. The match resumed later, however, and Kleybanova, who had been leading in the second set, saw both her lead and the match fall out of her hands.

Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, seeded 29th, just missed a chance to play Victoria Azarenka again. She held three match points against Lucie Safarova but could not convert them. Safarova won the 2 1/2-hour match,  4-6, 7-6, 6-2. Melinda Czink also had a second round match on her racquet, but lost to 32nd seed Maria Kirilenko.  20th seed Zheng Jie was upset by Virginie Razzano in straight sets.

11th seed Vera Zvonareva--though many of her games went to deuce--nevertheless had a pretty easy job of it against Melanie Oudin, whose service stats were terrible throughout most of the match. Zvonareva won, 6-1, 6-2.

And finally, Justine Henin defeated Elena Dementieva in straight sets (6-3, 6-2 ) again. Dementieva double-faulted 11 times, something she hasn't done lately, and converted only one of the three break chances she had against Henin.

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