Petra Kvitova was bundled out in round 1 after a horror show against the Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru, 7-6 6-3. It was a shocker of a match in which Kvitova failed to find any consistency on her strokes. Dulgheru does not have many weapons but all she really had to do was stick the ball in court and wait for the error from Petra. Kvitova was flat, frustrated and miles short of the form that helped her to the Wimby title; just like Li, there has been a titanic come down from winning her first major. This has opened up the draw for Lucie Safarova who recovered from losing the first set to defeat Magdalena Rybarikova, 2-6 6-3 6-2I also managed to watch the first set of Peng Shuai against Varvara Lepchenko, where Peng came through 6-3 6-4. It was a pretty good match from what I saw with both players hitting well from the back of the court. Lepchenko has some really nice strokes but she is really let down by her ropey and mechanical looking serve. This allowed Peng to dominate, especially on Lepchenko's 2nd serve which has nothing on it. Peng was much more consistent on serve and managed to find some good first serves at crucial stages of the matches; winning so many matches this year has really come in handy for Peng!
As I write, Maria Sharapova has lost the first set to the young Brit, Heather Watson who produced a consistent display to win it 6-3. Sharapova has once again struggled with her serve in the windy conditions and was making a lot of errors. In the second set, Watson went up an early break but Maria has slowly started to come back and managed to stick in the rallies and grind down Watson with some powerful and more consistent hitting, especially from the forehand. You cannot help but admire Sharapova's fighting spirit which is second to none... I will now get back to cheering on Watson, with this match heading to a third set!
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