Peer, Golovin Win WTA Stanford Openers
Posted on July 25, 2006STANFORD, CA, USA -- The first seed in action this week survived an early scare but regrouped to win as first round action kicked off at the $600,000 Bank of the West Classic, held at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium on the site of Stanford University in Palo Alto.
Israeli teenager Shahar Peer, the No.7 seed in the first leg of the 2006 US Open Series, outlasted wild card Amber Liu, 46 61 60, in a battle of feisty baseline competitors. Liu, a Stanford graduate and two-time NCAA champion, gave her fans something to cheer for early on in the match, winning the first set and gaining three chances for a 2-0 lead in the second set. But as always, Peer was tough as nails when faced with a potential defeat, reeling off 12 straight games to clinch the victory.
"I didn't take advantage of opportunities in the first set and in this game you need to take it," said the 26th-ranked Peer, who has won three Sony Ericsson WTA Tour titles this year. "But I mixed it up and changed tactics and kept fighting. She was still playing good but I picked up my game."
"She started serving better in the last two sets and I think that was the difference," stated Liu, who also received wild cards here in 2003 (reaching the second round) and 2004 (first round). "Had I been able to break her in the second set, who knows, but after she won that game she started to get a lot of momentum and went on her run."
In other first round singles matches, Tatiana Golovin recovered from a two-break deficit in the opening set to defeat the Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko, 75 62; mother-on-Tour Sybille Bammer ousted Marion Bartoli, 63 57 64; and in the late night match, Jill Craybas defeated former Top 10 player Chanda Rubin, who was playing her first tournament of the year, 62 63.
After going down 4-1 in the first set, Golovin began hitting pinpoint forehands and cutting back on the unforced errors, eventually gaining revenge for a first round defeat at Wimbledon last summer.
"I thought I played well today," said Golovin, who was playing just her fourth Tour match since the NASDAQ-100 Open in Miami due to a left ankle injury. "Little by little, I'm gaining confidence. The ankle injury was bad. I'm trying to get back slowly to the way I was playing early in the year."
The doubles draw was turned upside down in its first day of contention, as top-seeded duo Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama were ousted, 63 64, by the unseeded pairing of Jelena Jankovic and Shikha Uberoi. Hantuchova and Sugiyama have won two titles this year and were recently runners-up at Roland Garros, making this opening round exit far more shocking.
-- WTA
Israeli teenager Shahar Peer, the No.7 seed in the first leg of the 2006 US Open Series, outlasted wild card Amber Liu, 46 61 60, in a battle of feisty baseline competitors. Liu, a Stanford graduate and two-time NCAA champion, gave her fans something to cheer for early on in the match, winning the first set and gaining three chances for a 2-0 lead in the second set. But as always, Peer was tough as nails when faced with a potential defeat, reeling off 12 straight games to clinch the victory.
"I didn't take advantage of opportunities in the first set and in this game you need to take it," said the 26th-ranked Peer, who has won three Sony Ericsson WTA Tour titles this year. "But I mixed it up and changed tactics and kept fighting. She was still playing good but I picked up my game."
"She started serving better in the last two sets and I think that was the difference," stated Liu, who also received wild cards here in 2003 (reaching the second round) and 2004 (first round). "Had I been able to break her in the second set, who knows, but after she won that game she started to get a lot of momentum and went on her run."
In other first round singles matches, Tatiana Golovin recovered from a two-break deficit in the opening set to defeat the Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko, 75 62; mother-on-Tour Sybille Bammer ousted Marion Bartoli, 63 57 64; and in the late night match, Jill Craybas defeated former Top 10 player Chanda Rubin, who was playing her first tournament of the year, 62 63.
After going down 4-1 in the first set, Golovin began hitting pinpoint forehands and cutting back on the unforced errors, eventually gaining revenge for a first round defeat at Wimbledon last summer.
"I thought I played well today," said Golovin, who was playing just her fourth Tour match since the NASDAQ-100 Open in Miami due to a left ankle injury. "Little by little, I'm gaining confidence. The ankle injury was bad. I'm trying to get back slowly to the way I was playing early in the year."
The doubles draw was turned upside down in its first day of contention, as top-seeded duo Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama were ousted, 63 64, by the unseeded pairing of Jelena Jankovic and Shikha Uberoi. Hantuchova and Sugiyama have won two titles this year and were recently runners-up at Roland Garros, making this opening round exit far more shocking.
-- WTA