It was a New Year filled with new shocks as a jam packed crowd welcomed in 2014 at the Shenzhen Open. As the buzzing crowd shielded themselves from the glistening court, the underdogs of China sparkled. While Li Na progressed, the second and third seeds fell in two tumultuous matches.
Conversely, the home favourite Li Na breezed into the next round as she swept passed the Ukrainian world number 101 Nadiya Kichenok in a meagre hour and twenty-two minutes. With some beautiful groundstrokes and some dogged defending, Li eased to a 6-1 6-4 victory.
But, the day would be dominated by the fall of two of the tournament’s Goliaths, as world number seven Sara Errani and the 2013 Runner Up Klara Zakopalova both succumbed to defeat. The third seed (Zakopalova) opened today’s proceedings and her match against Patrica Mayr-Achleitner of Austria set the tone for what would follow. The contrast between the two players was like night and day, with the Austrian greeting every successful point with a ‘come on!’, while the usually electric Czech looked devoid of both confidence and energy.
Shaking her head at every poor point, and misfiring on all counts, Zakopalova lost the first set to a tie break and after dropping serve in her first game of the second, she trailed the match thereafter, eventually losing to 4.
Her opponent enthused at the end of the match, ‘What a great way to start the year,’ commented Mayr-Achleitner, ‘great atmosphere, great people. It’s amazing to be here.’
So, with this result still reverberating around the stadium and the Chinese crowd buzzing after Li Na’s victory, Sara Errani took to the centre stage, hoping that her match against Vania King would prove to be less of a testing challenge than her hard fought victory of Zheng Saisai. However, with temperatures plummeting and a wonderful exhibition of shot making from the two doubles specialists, the American would triumph to provide yet another twist.
The match ebbed and flowed, with both players providing the diehard crowd with some sumptuous night time tennis. After losing the first set, the enigmatic King raced into a 4-1 lead but was eventually pegged back by the powerful Errani. A tight tie break followed, with King having to withstand some match points, before the talented American usurped the Italian to take the match into a decider.
After a quick exchange of breaks, King required a medical timeout at 4-3 and looked in danger of having to withdraw. However, she somehow fought through and after breaking, found herself serving on match point. Despite some gamesmanship from Errani, yet another error from the little second seed handed the victory to an elated King, after two hours and forty minutes of tension.
Elsewhere, there were wins for eighth seed Annika Beck and Barbora Zahlavova Strycovo, who defeated another home favourite in the experienced Zheng Jie.
Selected Results
Li Na d. Nadiya Kichenok 6-1 6-4
Patricia Mayr-Achleitner d. Klara Zakopalova 7-6(2) 6-4
Vania King d. Sara Errani 2-6 7-6(7) 6-3
Barbora Zahlavova Strycova d. Zheng Jie 6-0 7-6(6)
Annika Beck d. Viktorija Golubic 6-3 5-7 6-3