In the first of the evening matches on Tuesday, last year’s finalist and the number five seed, Ana Ivanovic was bundled out of the tournament by Caroline Garcia.  The Frenchwoman saved three set points in a wacky and untidy opening set before prevailing in straight sets, 7-6(6) 6-4.  It’s hard to make sense of what happened in that messy first set.  Garcia began in sensational form, blasting seven winners in the first two games.  It was Ivanovic though who earnt the first break of the match having saved three break points in her opening service game.  Garcia was the much better player in the first set, striking the ball well and taking every available opportunity to close into the net.  She broke Ivanovic’s serve twice and served for the first set at *5-3. A loose game with a couple of errors saw Garcia unable to convert with Ivanovic staying in touch.

Ivanovic didn’t look comfortable on the court and appeared to be struggling with her footwork and movement on the court.  The Serb has been bothered by a foot injury for much of the year although I had read that this wasn’t an issue anymore.  To her credit, Ivanovic really dug in to some of the rallies and kept scrambling.  The first set went into a tiebreak with Garcia unable to capitalise on two set points, the second of those with a shot drifting long in a rally that she had dominated with Ivanovic on the run.  As missed opportunities loomed for Garcia, it was Ivanovic who brought up three set points at 6-3 in the tiebreak… however in another twist, Garcia won five straight points, with a great deal of help from Ivanovic, to win the opening set.

The second set began with three consecutive breaks of serve.  To be honest, it wasn’t a pretty match.  Garcia got the first hold of serve and rode it to the end with a very steady second set performance.  She served much better than Ivanovic, particularly in the second set where she lost just two points on her first serve, and she was the more dynamic player around the court.  Garcia finished with 32 winners to 20 unforced errors, while Ivanovic hit 9 less winners and 10 more unforced errors.  This was Garcia’s third win over Ivanovic in 2015 as the Serb continues to struggle this year.  She looks a shadow of the player who had looked so confident on court.  I wonder if she still has an injury because she didn’t quite look herself out there.  This was a very encouraging display from Garcia, who had suffered a tough weekend in Fed Cup action, losing both her matches including the opener where she had five match points against Safarova.  Garcia goes through to play Carina Witthoeft in the second round of Stuttgart in a match that will be played on Thursday.

Photo in this post by Jimmie48 Tennis Photography