BERLIN, Germany – The opening day of the Qatar Telecom German Open saw plenty of rain delays and just four of the scheduled 16 matches reach their conclusion. Six seeds were due to be in action at the $1,340,000, Tier I event on Monday, but only Li Na and Shahar Peer actually made it onto court.
Peer, the No.13 seed, came through her opening-round encounter in style, defeating home favourite Anna Lena-Groenefeld, 61 62. The 21-year-old Groenefeld was expected to provide a stern test for the young Israeli and will be disappointed she could not put on a better performance for the German crowd. The World No.43 failed to hold serve in the first set and never really looked comfortable against her higher-ranked opponent.
Peer has had a wonderful year to date - seeing her rise to a career high ranking of No.15 - and was striking the ball extremely well considering the testing conditions. Groenefeld had no answer to her opponent's crisp groundstrokes and after just 75-minutes the Israeli strolled over the finishing-line, to claim her 23rd singles victory of the year.
Chinese No.1 Li Na joined Peer in the second round after a hard fought 61 36 61 victory over Russia's Maria Kirilenko. World No.38 Kirilenko has endured a difficult season to date and after dropping the first set in under 30-minutes, it looked like her stay in the singles draw was set to be embarrassingly brief. However, once she had fallen behind the 20-year-old Muscovite dug deep, fending off five break points, to win the second set and force a decider.
Li reached the semifinals at the German Open last year and when the deciding set got underway, she displayed just why she was so successful during the 2007 clay court season. The No.14 seed upped her game, punishing the young Russian's hesitant play and took the third set for the loss of just 12-points.
Monday's other first-round winners were the Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova and France's Severine Brémond. World No.30 Safarova is competing in the Berlin Open for the first time and required three sets to overcome the challenge of Ukarainian qualifier Olga Savchuk, 63, 67(6) 60. After her run to the semifinal in Estoril last week, the 20-year-old from Brno will be hoping to continue her promising start to the European clay court season in the German capital.
Brémond enjoyed an altogether easier passage into the next round, defeating German wildcard entrant Sabine Lisicki, 62 61. The World No.37 has suffered a torrid first half of the season, winning just four singles matches prior to her victory on Monday, but she performed impressively, in far from ideal conditions, to beat her teenage opponent in under an hour.
The Berlin rain played havoc with Monday's schedule and as a result the day's last two singles matches could not be completed before the end of play. The encounter between Meghann Shaughnessy and Austria's Tamira Paszek saw the American take the first set before falling behind to an early break in the second. The pair will come back on Tuesday, with the match evenly poised at 76(3) 02. The day's other incomplete match gave the home crowd something to take their minds off the weather, as German wildcard Tatjana Malek played some sparkling tennis to take a surprise 61 43 lead over Russia's Vasilisa Bardina. (WTA)
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