There isn’t a great deal to recap as Caroline Wozniacki double bagelled Belinda Bencic in just 44 minutes to wrap up first round action in Istanbul.  I think there were a fair few people who gave Bencic a chance in this match, which makes the final scoreline all the more surprising.  Wozniacki was absolutely brilliant on serve, hitting nine aces, winning 78% of first serve points and quashing all three break point opportunities that Bencic brought up on the Woz serve.  Bencic played the big points poorly and didn’t win any points on her second serve throughout the entire match.

The match started rather promisingly with Bencic looking confident and trying to close out points at the net.  After a couple of close deuce games in the first set, of which Bencic had plenty of game points, the Swiss world number 62 tailed off rather spectacularly.  I’ve always credited Bencic as being one of the better players mentally on tour so the manner of this defeat was very surprising as she really ran out of ideas and just started overhitting at the end.  Bencic normally gives pretty good handshakes, but she looked mightily pissed off at the end.  This was a supreme performance from Wozniacki and if she continues in this form, she should be raising the trophy come Sunday.  Chin up, Belindy!