Alize Cornet held her ground and brought good moments to her game to move into the second round of the Australian Open Monday. The French tennis pro kept Xin Wang from gaining any significant ground of endangering the match to win 6-4, 6-2 on Court 15 at Melbourne Park.
The French star was in her 13th appearance in the year’s first Grand Slam hoping to make better than her second-round finish in Melbourne. It was the first time she faced the Chinese teenager who made her Australian Open debut. Wang lost to Belinda Bencic five days ago in a straight sets that saw her take the Swiss miss to a tiebreaker faltering at the last moment. She would try to bring the same game to Cornet and pull off a first round upset. The soon to be 28-year-old veteran went deep in Brisbane but didn’t put too much effort in Hobart giving her time to put in all the work in the two week tournament but jitters from both sides would be apparent.
Cornet matched Wang with a serve to love to start the set with each getting into a groove together. They remained on serve through four waiting for one another to fault in their game. Cornet led the way for the two showing strengths in her forehand serve that was beating Wang. It led to the first break in the sixth giving the French star the lead and chances to lock in a set win.
Wang attempted to hold off Cornet in the seventh but as the French star forced deuce, she faltered and let her get a grip on the game to take it 5-2. The teen well under pressure tried to keep the set alive in the eighth but errors on the forehand returns allowed Cornet to force deuce. They went to three breaks where the moment to win set point was taken away from Cornet that gave Wang life to move on. She consolidated the much needed win with another as Cornet’s final shot in the line just landed wide making it 5-4.
Cornet knew that she had to be aggressive with her skills and pressure Wang to drop. A strong rally response from the French star brought up set point which she won with a wide ball landing from Wang to close the set in 36 minutes. Despite having three double faults, Cornet’s mission to keep the errors low was just enough to help her be ahead on the score and up a set.
The second set saw the first game go seven minutes as Wang wanted to make her mark by any means. They only went to a couple of breaks on deuce but a good rally ended with Cornet achieving the break. She added two more wins as Wang had little to bring to the table as it was clear that her opponent was holding her ground firmly.
It wasn’t until the fifth that plenty of hard work from Wang allowed her to win a game ending the five game winning streak of the French player. She returned on serve in the sixth and made it 5-1 leaving very little hope to play for a third set. She held on to win one more game that didn’t come easy as Cornet was on the prowl to bring an end to her first round. She forced deuce with Wang but couldn’t secure the break point setting her up with a shot to do it herself.
It was not easy for her as errors came along to make it hard and in turn force deuce between herself and Wang. She handed the Chinese teen three chances but an error handed Cornet match point which she did not waste bringing her day to a close with victory. It took her just and plenty of rest to prepare for her second-round match between Sofia Kenin and Julia Goerges on Wednesday.
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