Stosur advances despite German assault.

Australia’s last remaining hope in the Wimbledon women’s draw, Samantha Stosur advanced to the third round today after a tough three set battle against German teenager Tatiana Malak. Malak who defeated Australia’s other great hope Jelana Dokic in the first round, threatened to repeat the pain for Aussie tennis fans when she took the opening set from an error riddled Stosur.

Malak’s solid base line game proved difficult to match for the top ranked Australian who was clearly out of sorts in the first set. Stosur’s powerful forehand, so often her most dangerous weapon, proved highly erratic as multiple unforced errors gifted the young German the first break of serve. The trend continued throughout the opening set and the set finished as it had began with four consecutive Stosur errors handing the set to her 101st ranked opponent.

The second set followed a similar script to the opener as Stosur’s rapidly rising unforced error count threatened to derail her Wimbledon dream. After handing an early break to Malak, Stosur finally broke her opponents serve midway through the second set to provide hope that a comeback was imminent. Both players served solidly to send the second set to a tiebreaker.

Four more forehand errors to open the vital tiebreak appeared to have sealed Stosur’s fate as the rock solid Malak continued to frustrate the Australian. Stosur steadied to level the tiebreak at 6-6 and the turning point of the match came in the tiebreak’s marathon 13th point. Stosur toughed out an epic 31 shot rally to secure a set point which she duly converted to even up the match at one set all.

Despite finding form late in the second set Stosur’s forehand nightmare returned early in the deciding set allowing Malak to race to a 4-1 lead. It appeared Stosur’s 44 unforced errors would hand the German a second consecutive victory over Australia’s top ranked players. Just as the match appeared headed for another disappointing result for Australian tennis fans Stosur rallied, finally finding her ‘A’ game and reeling off five consecutive games to secure the match and advance to the third round.

It’s the first time Stosur has advanced past the second round at Wimbledon and looks set to face 13th seed Anna Ivanovic in the third round.

Samantha Stosur (Aus) 4 7 6
Tatiana Malak (Ger) 6 6 4

Double Fault Dokic bows out.

Comeback kid Jelena Dokic bowed out of Wimbledon today losing to German qualifier Tatiana Malek in the first round. A clearly under prepared Dokic failed to build on a promising opening set to go down 3-6 7-5 6-2 to the 101st ranked German teenager.

Dokic’s Wimbledon preparation was severely disrupted after having to withdraw from the French open 2nd round with a lower back complaint. With no lead up matches to prepare her for her grass court assault, Dokic would have been pleased with the way she began the first round encounter.

From the first point of the match Dokic looked sharp securing the opening game with a series of her trademark flat forehand winners. The Dokic dominance continued throughout the first set culminating in a second break to secure the opening set 6-3.

With the first set locked away in only 28 minutes spectators could have been forgiven for thinking the match was heading for an early finish. Enter double fault Dokic. As quickly as Dokic had taken control of the match in the first game, her serve deserted her midway through the second set.

Consecutive double faults gifted Malek her first break of serve and set the tone for the remainder of the match. A brief fight back at 2-4 by Dokic allowed her to put the set back on serve however the serving jitters returned soon after and once again consecutive double faults handed the German the second set.

The deciding set proved much of the same for Dokic as her mounting double fault and unforced error count proved too much for her to overcome. In the end 16 double faults and 46 unforced errors gave the Australian no real chance of progressing to the second round.

Malek now progresses for the first time to the second round at Wimbledon where she will meet another Australian Samantha Stosur who disposed of American Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the first round.

Welcome to Monday's Expert

Welcome to Monday's Expert. I have deveolped this blog in an endeavor to improve my writing and sports reporting skill's to support my journalism study at QUT. I look forward to sharing with you some opinion and information about the world of sport that we all know and love.

There will be a leaning towards AFL initally as it is my first sporting passion, however I'm sure as I get more used to posting regular stories I will share my opinion on a wider spectrum of sports.

I hope you enjoy the content of this blog and feel free to share it with your friends.

Cheers Paul