DUBAI, 20 February 2007 — Sixth-seed Patty Schnyder battled to a 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 win over Francesca Schiavone yesterday to reach the second round of the Dubai Open.
The Swiss left-hander had suffered early losses to Ekaterina Bychkova and Tatiana Golovin in her last two events, and struggled to gain the upper hand against Schiavone.
The Italian occasionally played well at the net and rallied bravely from the baseline but was ultimately let down by a serve that produced 12 double-faults.
Schiavone lost an early break as Schnyder leveled at 3-3 in the opening set, and a double-fault gave Schnyder set point at 5-4. But Schiavone held off that threat, and then took the tiebreak on her fourth set point.
Schnyder won the second set by breaking in the first and last games, and then took a 3-1 lead in the third set when Schiavone hit her 11th double-fault. Although Schiavone recovered that break in the seventh game, a further double-fault and then a forehand error gave Schnyder a further break and left her serving for the match. “I’ve had some struggles and it was really important to get through a tough one,” said Schnyder. “I had so many chances in the first set and didn’t do it. I’m really happy I got through.
“My serve was really good, and I was just staying in the match and fighting for every shot. That’s what you have to do when your confidence is not great. You have to hang in there and it will come back.”
Chinese seventh seed Na Li lost a marathon battle with Eleni Daniilidou of Greece, holding a match point in the second set before losing 6-7, 7-6, 6-3 in just over three hours.
Champion Justine Henin of Belgium, the top seed at the $1.5 million event, has never lost in three previous appearances.
Amelie Mauresmo of France, the winner in Antwerp on Sunday and the 2002 Dubai champion, is seeded No. 2.
Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova is the third seed while Tokyo champion Martina Hingis of Switzerland is seeded four.
All have first round byes.
Murray Battles Past Karlovic
to Win San Jose
Scottish teenager Andy Murray won the San Jose Open title for the second successive year after fighting back to beat Ivo Karlovic 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 on Sunday.
Murray succeeded where James Blake, Mardy Fish and Benjamin Becker failed by getting to grips with the unseeded Karlovic’s serve, but the Scot had to display all his battling qualities when the 2.08 meters Croat threatened to overwhelm him early on. “I think he served 12 aces in the first set, five in the second and nine in the third so I started to get a bit of a read on his serve and got into more of his service games,” said Murray. Karlovic’s 26 aces took his tally for the week to 113.
“He’s the best server in the game but he’s not the best returner. You have to focus on your own service games and try to keep it tight,” added the Scot.
Just 10 points went against serve as the first set headed to a tiebreak and it was Karlovic who took it 7-3, before breaking Murray’s serve in the opening game of the second set. But Murray broke back immediately and then again in the 10th game to win the set 6-4, then became only the fourth active player on the ATP Tour to successfully defend their first tour title by winning the third set in another tiebreaker.
“It’s about mental strength. You have to strike the ball pretty well to win an ATP tournament and I think I did that,” said Murray after winning his second career title.
After winning the opening set and breaking Murray in the first game of the second, world No. 103 Karlovic looked to be on the way to the title.
But Murray fought back to take the second set and saved a break point with an ace at 5-5 in the third.
The Scottish third seed had match point in the next game only for Karlovic to save it with a volley at full stretch.
A brilliant lob from Murray set up the first mini-break in the tiebreak and Karlovic’s first double fault handed the Scot a 5-2 lead before he finished it off with his eighth ace.
Karlovic admitted he had perhaps gotten ahead of himself when he broke at the start of the second set.
“I believed, honestly, I thought I was going to win,” he said. “Maybe the break was a little too early, in my head. I started focusing on things that are not important.” Karlovic is set to rise inside the world’s top 70 and believes he can go much higher after missing six months of last year with a knee injury.
“I think I can be top 30. I think it’s realistic.”
