Maria Sharapova had a first serve that couldn’t be beaten at the Tianjin Open Wednesday. The tennis superstar held off Irina Begu before dominating the second set winning 6-4, 6-2 on Centre Court at the Tianjin Tuanbo International Tennis Centre.
The Russian picked up some more points to get her into the top 100 placing 86th to begin the new week with a new tournament. Her drawing Begu gives her a chance to go for three against the Romanian who she beat at Wimbledon in 2015. Begu played three matches to the distance winning just one of them. Sharapova dealt with a loss to newly crowned number one Simona Halep but knew that with her having the best chance in a wide open tournament, the former number one had her own skills to count on.
She fought Begu by holding serve through the first six games holding serve till a change of pace was initiated. Begu went for the break in the seventh, succeeding in taking down Sharapova for the lead change. What she didn’t expect was that her poking the former number one had consequences. Sharapova followed suit in the eighth with a break of the Romanian before getting the 5-4 lead to make a break for the set win. Using defensive tactics against Begu, the 30 year old got ahead on the scoreboard to complete her security of the set in 42 minutes. She landed 83 percent on the first serve which said a lot for the second where she only won 3 of 11.
Sharapova kept the workhorse moving on the first serve that gave her a 2-0 lead in the second set forcing her way to knock down Begu at every chance. A draw on deuce occurred for the first time with Begu fighting for the AD point and the break. After three breaks, the Russian held opening her winning streak to four games and the margin to half the set. Her second serve improved slowly with a grip on the match coming together.
Begu got on the board with her own service hold but the gap remained at three games once Sharapova was done in the fifth. Her forehand kept smashing difficult returns for Begu that produced a 5-2 score and first chance at putting the match to rest. She got it done against the 27 year old, overwhelming the Romanian with well-placed returns that gave her the completion in 1 hour and 22 minutes.
The fast win saw her take the delay of playing out the first round with a force that remained solid in her straight sets win. She’ll await the winner between Magda Linette and Kateryna Bondarenko in a second rounder scheduled for Thursday.
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