Saturday, 24 March 2018

Dodin gives Halep harsh Miami test

Day Three of the Miami Open on Key Biscayne, Florida was rather difficult for a number of seeds in th women’s draw, after they enjoyed a first round bye.

Top seed Simona Halep ran into a red hot Oceane Dodin, who belied her ranking of 98 by pounding many winners and hitting several big serves, to unsettle Halep.

Dodin was a lucky loser in qualifying but appeared much more accomplished as she served four aces and broke twice to lead 6-3.

As expected, Halep revived her fortunes in set two, with Dodin only winning 35% of points behind her serve.

Between the two, serve was only held four times, but the top seed was responsible for three of those and levelled at a set all.

In the decider, Dodin thrilled the crowd with some punishing ground shots for several winners, breaking Halep to lead 3-1, and then again for 4-2, after Halep had muscled her way back on serve in a lengthy fifth game.

Sadly for the tall French player, Halep found her range and consistency, and reeled off five of the final six games to escape 3-6 6-3 7-5 and move into the third round.

Other seeds not so fortunate to survive their first outing included:

Madison Keys (14) - beaten by wildcard Vika Azarenka 7-6(5) 2-0 (retired)

Julia Goerges (12) - beaten by German compatriot Carina Witthoeft 7-6(2) 4-6 6-4

Sveta Kuznetsova (18 - beaten by Zarina Diyas 6-1 6-3

Sorana Cîrstea (32) - beaten by Su-Wei Hsieh 7-5 6-2

Barbora Strycova (25) - beaten by Christina McHale 6-1 6-4

Magdaléna Rybarikova (17) - beaten by qualifier Monica Niculescu 6-3 6-3

Carla Suárez Navarro (27) - beaten by qualifier Yafan Wang 7-5 6-3

Caroline Garcia (7) - beaten by qualifier Alison Riske 6-3 6-1

Half of the seeds sent out to play were successful, if you can count the walkover given to Garbiñe Muguruza (3) among those.

But it was a relief for organisers to see Agnieszka Radwanska (30), Anastasija Sevastova (20), Karolina Pliskova (5), Sloane Stephens (13), Angie Kerber (10), and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (23) all join Halep on the road to round three

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