Welcome to the first Premier Mandatory of the tennis year! Sara has already arrived on US soil, better, on US West Coast hardcourts and she’s ready to start her BNP Paribas Open 2015. As n.11 seeded player here, Sara will have a bye in the first round.

Sarita’s good shape continues to rise during her good performance against the young Chinese Lin Zhu after her amazing though unlucky 3-set semifinal facing Timea Bacsinszky in Monterrey. In her strong start, the n.12 of the world ranking dominates every single minute of play during the first set: 6-0. Altough the Asian tried to raise her game within the following set – particularly elevating her first serve quality from 43% to 64% – so succeeding in draging the match on a tie situation. Luckily for Sara, the Chinese pays the cost for the previous battle in terms of energy in the final set: she only finds her way to one break in the beginning but she backs down the stretch. Sara doesn’t miss the chance and closes the match in 8 games, 6-2.

Sara faced Sabine Lisicki – who defeated her Doubles partner Roberta Vinci in the second round – in the next match. Even thought the German couldn’t managed to get 2 wins in a row throughout the whole current season, she seemed to be in the zone today. Sara has very few regrets on her shoulders as since the very first point the only game plan Lisicki had was to be as aggressive as possible, and unfortunately for the Italian, she nailed it. Definitively a brute strength victory. Final score: 4-6, 2-6.