Caroline Wozniacki, Heather Watson as well as Jie Zhen will play in the second round of the 2012 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.
Former number one Wozniacki came into the tournament as last week’s Seoul title holder. She picked up where she had let off a couple of days ago by sweeping away Serbian qualifier Bojana Jovanovski in the first set of the opening round in Tokyo. Jovanovski was unable to gather more than six points in the first twenty-one minutes of the match which meant she went a set down with a bagel. In the second set, the spectators witnessed an abundance of break points. Wozniacki was able to reply to the first loss of serve, but did not find an answer to the second one, so the Serbian pulled level. The players gave away a serve each at the beginning of the decider as the rain interruption at 3-all followed. Wozniacki was broken straight after the delay, but stay relaxed enough for a one final comeback. She managed to convert her third match point on 20 year-old Jovanovski’s serve to wrap up a 6-0, 3-6, 6-4 victory after two hours and twenty-one minutes of play. Her next opponent will be Daniela Hantuchova.
World No. 78 British player Watson will be happy to have dismissed 30th-ranked German Sabine Lisicki. They have met twice in 2010 and had shared a victory each before today’s Tokyo first round encounter. Lisicki was struggling to keep a serve on a couple of occasions in the opening set, yet the result was tied until 5-4 when Watson broke her opponent to love, thus stealing the set. She was trailing twice in the second set, but pulled off two re-breaks to level the score at 3-3. Some confident serving followed and the set went into a tiebreaker. 20 year-old Watson built a 6-1 lead out of three mini-breaks and threw Lisicki out of Tokyo after converting match point number two. Watson took this one with 6-4, 7-6 (3), but will have to raise her game even more against Maria Sharapova in her next match.
27th-ranked Zhen was too high a hurdle for American Vania King, currently placed thirty-two spots below the Chinese. King started brightly as she seized an early break, but could not keep the advantage past the fifth game. Zhen pulled off a comeback and served out the set at 5-3 despite King creating – and missing – two break points in the closing game. Zhen put an instant pressure on King and took her serve in the first game of the following set. This has proved to be a decisive moment of the set two as King could not produce any break points to get back into the match. Thus, the 29 year-old Zhen advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 win.
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