Within the space of twenty minutes, the Italian duo of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci both departed the singles competition in Montreal.  In the first completed match of the 2014 Rogers Cup, Sabine Lisicki defeated the number 13 seed, Errani, 6-1 7-5.  Wins have been hard to come by for Sabine this year, but this was arguably, one of her best of the entire year.  Lisicki played a great first set dominating from the baseline and showing plenty of variety as she produced some cute drop shots, which Errani was surprisingly slow to deal with.  Watching Errani play against a big hitter who is actually keeping the ball in the court is awkward.  She was nowhere in the first set and hit ZERO winners.

Errani played much better in the second set and there was a noticeable change in her tactics to be more aggressive.  She hit four winners in two games, one of which was actually quite impressive! Lisicki’s serve started to go AWOL, which seems to be a common feature in many of her matches.  She can hit first serve bombs, but the second serve is extremely vulnerable at times.  Errani led 3-0* and then served for the set at *5-3.  After showing some improvement in the middle of the set, the Italian player then sunk without trace as she committed a series of uncharacteristic errors.  Sabine broke, held and then broke to lead *6-5.  She double faulted on the first point, but won the next four and closed the match out convincingly.

Sabine moves through to the second round where she will face a tricky second round match against either Svetlana Kuznetsova or Madison Keys.