Agnieszka Radwanska took a solid first step that led her to victory at the Wuhan Open Tuesday. The world number won in straight sets against Ekaterina Makarova winning 6-4, 6-1 on Centre Court at the Optics Valley International Tennis Centre.
It’s been more than two years since the tennis stars met one another. 2014 saw the two split wins against one another with each being at a pinnacle moment of the season. Though Radwanska holds the series lead by half, both of them are quite talented and would give it their all. The world number four (like Makarova) kept her victories in straight sets like most of her matches. Wanting to start the tournament the same way, the top seed had to dictate early to see her success run forward.
She took a big lead on Makarova breaking the Russian in the third before gaining a 3-1 lead. Makarova recovered in the fifth with an important hold of serve but it was soon put down by the world number four. Radwanska pushed on service in the sixth regaining a comfortable two game margin that inched her closer to the set win.
Makarova put the winning of Radwanska to a halt making a comeback in the eighth. The third seed prevented the Russian from overtaking her in the late stages ending it with a two game streak that concluded the first 42 minutes. Makarova’s unforced errors took a toll on her second serve that couldn’t bring her offense together.
With the need for improvement, the Russian held her end to start the second but quickly saw her game take another slide. Unforced errors opened the gap for Radwanska who countered on every point given to her to take a big lead. It was quickly a 4-1 command lead for the Pole who fed on the troubles of Makarova hoping to prevent her comeback and end the match. She closed out the sixth game with an eight-point streak to play for the match on Makarova’s last chance on court.
She nearly had the problems solved in the seventh with a good look of holding serve but a rush back from the world number four enabled a fight on deuce that ended the match after just a break. Radwanska won the set completing one hour and nine minutes of tennis and a place in the third round.
“I was just glad that I could play my first match in straight sets,” Radwanska said during her on court interview. If all goes well, Radwanska could face Caroline Wozniacki for the second time this week depending on her match against Katerina Siniakova. “We always play good matches so I’m not expecting any short and easy matches. We just played a three-hour match in Tokyo so another battle in front of us and hope I can turn it around this time but for sure it’s gonna be a good one.”
Photo by: Toru Yamanaka
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