Maria Sharapova had some rocky moments and challenges but came out a winner at the Tianjin Open. Her straight sets victory over Magda Linette wasn’t up to par but the offensive power from the Russian resulted in a 7-5, 6-3 win on centre court at the Tianjin Tuanbo International Tennis Centre.
The Polish number two got her first chance to face Sharapova in her career hoping to have a grip on her own game and a farer result against the former number one. She went the distance Wednesday against Kateryna Bondarenko finishing with a tight third set win over the Ukrainian. Sharapova got through Begu swiftly with a strong first serve that she hoped would carry her closer to winning a title while she sat the odds-on favorite to win.
The match didn’t start off that way as Linette held her own through the first two chances on serve. Though she fell behind, the 25-year-old found a way to climb back into control and finish off with the hold. It went on for the first six games with Sharapova trying to gain a footing in the set to run away with it. The Russian nearly gave the seventh away with a second double fault and the need to rally back from 15-40. The 30-year-old forced deuce and won on the first break to keep in front.
Despite both of them struggling on the return side of their game, they remained deadlocked in a tie that had Sharapova in a situation she needed to change. In response, the former world number one opened to 40-0, allowed a point to Linette before ending the rally with a well-placed winner. The pressure was on Linette to hold in the tenth which she succeeded on the errors of Sharapova leading to further action in the set.
It was those two games that saw the world number 86 hold serve followed by the key break that avoided going to a tiebreaker to complete 48 minutes. Both the first and second serve were at a level of comfort but more improvements were needed on the return.
The two opened the second with another good showing of service holds through five games when a new tide formed in favor of Sharapova. She took the sixth with some force that became the second break of the match and both by her doing. She put the pedal to the metal and opened a 5-2 gap on Linette looking to bring an end to her day on court. Linette sat on the edge of defeat but fought with all the effort she had to stay alive. Sharapova was very much on the hunt for victory but it resulted in playing on deuce. After two breaks, the 25-year-old held her ground for a moment before facing Sharapova on serve for the match.
She had to put in a lot of fight to stay in control of her serve that Linette had good answers for. Falling behind in the game, Sharapova saved break points that got her to deuce again gaining the first AD point only to send the ball wide on her first attempt. It would be the third that was the charm for the 30-year-old veteran as a ten shot rally ended with Linette erring the ball into the net bringing a close to the second round in 1 hour and 38 minutes.
Sharapova will await her third-round opponent between the winner of Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland and Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva on Friday.
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