On Thursday morning, Camila Giorgi faced Julia Goerges for the third time of her career. She had won the 2 previous meetings and developed a wonderful tennis to win the third one today. She only needed 71 minutes to beat the German 6-3, 6-2.
Giorgi plays clean tennis and wins the opening set
After two holds of serves in the first two games of the match, Camila Giorgi did not take long before having her first break points opportunities at 2-1. She took one of them quite easily and put herself forward with a 3-1 lead. The exchanges were very short and the German was always quickly surpassed by the power of the Italian player. Goerges clearly suffered from a lack of first serves with only 40 percent of first serves in the opening set, which made all of her service games effortful to win. After conceding a first break early in the set, the German always held her serves but could not just break back her opponent, which cost her the first set six games to three.
Same story in the second set, Giorgi pulls herself through to the second round
Just like in the first set, both players held their first service games but Giorgi made the difference quite early too by breaking the Goerges serve at 1-1. The Italian kept playing well and hit few unforced errors which made her ultra efficient today. At 3-2 up, Giorgi hit four double faults (the only four of the match) in the same service game, offering Goerges her first (and only) break point chance.
The German wasted it by hitting a big return unforced error, which allowed her opponent to hold once again despite firing 4 double faults in the same game. In the next game, the Italian turned the knife in the wound a little bit more by breaking Goerges once again. She made no mistake when she had to serve the match out, wrapping up the win 6-3, 6-2, after 71 minutes.
A last look at the statistics
There were very few winners in this match, the encounter was rather an affair of unforced errors as Goerges hit 9 winners for 21 unforced errors and Giorgi 10 winners for 18 unforced errors. They both hit very few first serves in the court (43 percent for the German as opposed to 53 percent for the Italian) and they also served more double faults than aces.
Giorgi to play Ana Ivanovic next
Camila Giorgi will face 14th seed, Ana Ivanovic, in the second round of the BNP Paribas Open. They have only met once before and the Serbian came through that match with a straight sets victory.