We have already a couple of illustrious casualties in the Doha first round.
Stephens loses 7-5 6-1 to Cetkovska
The world no.18 is struggling to confirm her 2013 form. Sloane is not playing her best tennis to now crash out in the first round in Doha to world no. 134 Petra Cetkovska. The key of the match in the first set on a 5 all score line. Sloane had a couple of break point and it seemed as the first set was up for grab, but eventually she missed the opportunity to then being broken in the next game. After losing the first set Sloane imploded to lose the second set 6-1. See Match Stats
Vinci loses 6-3 6-3 to Pironkova
Seed no. 11 Roberta Vinci loses to Tsvetana Pironkova in straight painful sets. The Italian has even managed to limit the damage as she recovered when she was 6-3 5-0 down.
Pironkova is having an interesting year. In fact, she has started as world no.107 to win Sydney coming straight from the qualifications beating 3 top 10 players. Now after this match she confirms that that week in Australia didn’t come by chance, but she can beat any top player.
After the match she commented “I started really solid – my concentration got lost a little bit, but I’m happy the way I played overall. We played three or four times before and I never won, so this is great for me.”
In the next round Svetlana will play Annika Beck. Head to head is 1-0 for the German
