Elina Svitolina had a good outing on her first opening of the tournament at the Taiwan Open Tuesday. The world number 13 swept through the first and stayed cool through a challenging second to win in straight sets 6-0, 6-3 against Rodina Evgeniya on centre court.
The number one seed goes into Taiwan with a heavy advantage against the field of 32. The world number 13 matches against the Russian for a second time defeating her once last season in New Haven. The Ukrainian coasted to an easy straight sets win and hoped to achieve another fast start to the opening round. Svitolina pushed well into the season defeating lower ranked opponents while gaining some big ones along the way.
At the start of the competition, Svitolina saw things coasting easily through the first two games. She opened with a double game pointer followed by a break of Rodina on service in the second. The games were flying through as the Russian racked up the unforced errors that in turn gave Svitolina quick points to win them. By the time 15 minutes had elapsed, the 22-year-old Ukrainian had secured double breaks and two holds of serve.
She ran toward a 5-0 leading pulling off a clean love service to serve things up for the bagel. Rodina was on the edge of defeat in the set and didn’t see much improvement. Svitolina reached three set points before a winner locked up the set win for her in 18 minutes. With a completely dominating performance, the solution came to the Russian’s troubles on court requiring a trainer during the set break. After a temperature check and blood pressure test it was concluded that Rodina could continue on despite serving 31 percent and landing just two of five on the serve and 2 of 11 from her second.
The second set ran much like the first with Svitolina showing her power and dictation on service. The crowd wanted Rodina to get into the match and nearly did so on serve. She pushed the Ukrainian to deuce but achieving the break was challenging. The world number 13 gained it quickly on the break to take another 2-0 lead for her eighth game in a row. The fight occurred on deuce once more with Rodina challenging to win on the break. Despite all her efforts, the highly experienced tennis star kept her composure maintaining a grip of control and the current shutout over the Russian.
The fight from Rodina was alive despite having troubles winning a game. Her problems were silenced just briefly on a hold of serve on deuce. She somehow held off Svitolina through two breaks before capturing her first game of the tournament receiving cheers from the crowd. While a shutout was out of the picture, getting closer to victory was still the mission for Svitolina who got back on serve to take a 4-1 lead with two more wins left.
It was becoming clear that Rodina did not want to give up any more games to her opponent while she had the ball in hand. Knowing that opportunities were becoming less and less, the 27-year-old held serve once more gaining a second victory but saw defeat creep closer thereafter. Svitolina did everything to hold serve putting pressure on Rodina to stay alive in the match. She answered with her first love service in the eighth but came back to facing the tough Ukrainian who wanted to close out the match. She reached 40-0 before a challenged call on a long ball only saw it to be confirmed ending things in 58 minutes for the number one seed.
“I was playing really good today and I don’t feel any pressure even being the top seed in the tournament,” she said during her on court interview. “I’ll try focusing on the next game, that’s what matters.” She’ll await the winner between Lucie Hradecka and Kateryna Kozlova in the second round for Wednesday’s action.
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