Sorana-Mihaela Cirstea was back and on to the second round at the Miami Open Wednesday night. In a stunner that occurred on center court, Monica Puig fell into a dead spin leaving the Romanian to run away with the match winning in straight sets 6-2, 6-4 at Crandon Park Tennis Center.
The reigning Olympic gold medalist hoped that her fifth appearance at the Miami could develop into a serious journey being back in familiar territory. The Miami resident hasn’t got past the second round of the WTA premier and has to even things up with the Romanian who beat her back at Indian Wells prelims in 2011. The world number clearly has moved up the ranks since and gave her best opening round performance two weeks ago in the desert. With another opening match against a lower ranked opponent, the Puerto Rican was likely to have comfort on her side being close to home.
Things didn’t go well as the Romanian took a 2-0 lead to start the set knowing that getting ahead of Puig was a crucial way to start. What she got further in was a runaway as Cirstea’s offense tore through the Puerto Rican. She found herself serving for the set so quickly and got it done in the eighth to finish the first in 30 minutes.
The downfall continued for Puig who didn’t seem to have good answers from her racket. It was becoming a show of too much aggression from her end that further handed Cirstea easy points to her run at straight sets. She already had two wins in the second set in her quest to stay on point while working through her opponent’s problems. She picked up a fourth straight on serve leaving Puig no alternative to play through till something changed.
The light at the end of the tunnel arrived in the fifth as she somehow held service for the first time in ten seven decisions. Puig followed it up with a second win that brought cheers to the crowd. They were put to silence in the seventh as the Romanian went for the match but was denied by Puig who began to heat up her offense to attack at every cost.
She minimized the unforced errors and brought up the winners against Cirstea who couldn’t keep up with the pace. It tuned into a dramatic set with Puig just a game down after nine. The Romanian got the ball back once more to serve for it and did so on some critical errors by Puig to set up the chance. She got it along with a sigh of relief that brought an end to the 69-minute match.
Cirstea had very little unforced errors while Puig’s main problem sat with 30 of them in the straight sets. “I think I started strong and then towards the end of the second set I backed off but I’m happy with the way fought and the way I won the last game,” Cirstea said to Andrew Krasny after the match.
She'll go into the second round to face Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia on Friday.
She'll go into the second round to face Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia on Friday.
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