Madrid has been proved again a Premier Mandatory hard to get along with for Sara. A 2-0 match record in 2015 – Miami and Monterrey – didn’t spare Sara from Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s revenge, denying her the access to third round (6-3, (7)6-7, 4-6).

Sarita was off to a great start in the beginning, taking 5 of the first 6 games of play and closing the set safely, 6-3. She felt thus confident to even engage in a neck and neck against the Russian in the second set, which proved to be fatal right away: at 4-4 tie, Cichi failed to take advantage of a double fault to serve for the match, leading to a tie-break showdown. Once again Sara couldn’t profit from the situation and missed some match to let Pavlyuchenkova level the match.

Almost the same routine within the final set: Sara went to serve at 4-4 tie but the Russian succeeded in placing the decisive strike for the win with a break after 2 hours and 39 minutes of play.

Enough with Spain for now, we are finally going back “home”! Sarita will shortly set off to Rome for the Internazionali BNL d’Italia 2015!