For the second time in her career, Sara has reached the second week of a Grand Slam. In an excellent match, she beat 13th seed Ana Ivanovic: 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. The start of the match wasn’t very good for Sara; she said after the match that she was nervous and felt the strain on her legs. She also didn’t manage to hold her serve through the first set. Only in the second set she started moving better so she could execute her gameplan. There were a couple of breaks for both players in the second set, but at 5-5, Sara held her serve and then broke Ivanovic in the next game to win the set. In the third set, Sara got broken in the first game, but she broke straight back. Then at 3-2, Sara placed the decisive break; after that game, both players held their serve, until Sara served out the match at 5-3. Overall, Sara played a really good match today, very intelligent; she did exactly what she had to do to beat Ivanovic. She showed all the variation she has in her game, and used it in her advantage. “It’s one of my most beautiful victories,” Sara said after the match.
After beating 2008 champion Ivanovic in the 3rd round, Sara will face 2009 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the 4th round. They’ve played 5 times before, and Kuznetsova won all those meetings. Looking forward on the match, Sara commented:
“She’s a tricky player, especially on these courts. Her balls are very heavy, and she moves to the forehand a lot. But sometimes she gives you chances, I’ll have to play good to take advantage of this.”
In doubles, Sara and Roberta are in the third round, after beating Babos/Hsieh 6-4, 6-2. Tomorrow, 3rd match after 11am on court 6, they will play against Bratchikova/Gallovits-Hall. After her win of today, Sara has pulled out of mixed doubles, to focus on singles and regular doubles.
Of course, there has been some media attention for the upset Sara pulled today. There’s an article on the Roland Garros website, a match report and an audio interview on ubitennis (in Italian), and another video interview at federtennis. On ubitennis there’s also a video of Sara with Ubaldo Sacanagatta, arriving at Roland Garros on a Vespa. Finally, there are a lot of new pictures in the photogallery.
