Timea Babos and Anna-Lena Friedsam were the first players to get through to the second round at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart, a WTA Premier Tournament. Babos beat 2013 Wimbledon finalist Lisicki 7-6 (7-4) 6-3. German wild-card Friedsam knocked out Johanna Konta 6-3 6-3.
Timea Babos from Hungary held off a late come-back from German Sabine Lisicki to take a hard-fought win 7-6 (7-4) 6-3. Babos earned the first break of the match in the 8th game of the opening set to take a 5-3 lead. The Hungarian player failed to serve it out in the 10th game, but he held on to clinch the opening set in the tie-break. Lisicki won four consecutive points to rally from 0-6 to 4-6 in the tie-break but Babos closed out the first set 7-4.
Lisicki came back from 1-5 down by saving two match points but Babos won the final game to close out the match in just over 90 minutes. Babos will face Garbine Muguruza, who won their previous head-to-head match in the Round of 16 in Doha.
Babos started her 2016 season well, having reached the quarter finals in Shenzhen, St. Petersburg and Katowice and teh round of 16 in Miami.
“In the second set, she felt the match was going away from her and she started to punch the ball as hard as she could and started to serve even better, which is a huge weapon of hers. I am happy that I was able to close it out at 5-3, because even at 5-1, I was doing only first serves and even some big serves and she ripped some winners”, said Babos.
Anna Lena Friedsam beat this year’s Australian Open semifinalist Johanna Konta 6-3 6-3. The German wild-card is projected to face Carla Suarez Navarro in the second round.
Louisa Chirico beat Camila Giorgi 6-3 6-3 in the last qualifying round, but the Italian will play in the Main Draw as lucky loser. The other qualifier players will be Oceane Dodin, Laura Siegemund and Carina Witthoeft.
Chirico will face a very tough first round match against Petra Kvitova. Dodin, who beat Kristina Pliskova in the first round, will play against Carla Suarez Navarro. Siegemund will clash against Anastasya Pavlyuchenkova. Witthoeft beat Ana Konjuh setting up a first round match against Ana Ivanovic.
