Tuesday's action in Porsche Tennis Grand Prix delivered the match-ups between top star names, which were expected to be great and intense battles, but occured to be one-sided and straightforward shows.
Paula Badosa gave away just two games to Daria Kasatkina, eliminating the WTA top 10 player in first round with a score 6-1 6-1. The Spaniard who was gifted with a wild card to main draw of Stuttgart's event, showed a flawless performance today, giving absolutely no chance for the tournament's seventh seed. Badosa was dominating from the start, earning 4-0 lead and clinching first set without a neccesity to face any single breakpoint. Second set started from an important hold from former world's number two, who defended the only one breakpoint produced by Kasatkina throughout whole the match. Both players were leveled on serve till third game, when Badosa raised up again, and won 5 games in row, securing the victory in style. Advancing to second round, current world's number 31 sets up the clash between two best Spanish racquets, as she meets Cristina Bucsa who reached out the main draw after prevailing in qualies stage, and defeated another qualifier Tamara Korpatsch in first round, 3-6 6-4 6-0.
Jelena Ostapenko needed just one hour to seal the victory in the clash between Grand Slam champions, as she defeated Emma Raducanu 6-2 6-1. The Brit, who is ranked just 68th in WTA rankings, received a wild card to the main draw, but showed that she is still way off the optimal form. Raducanu had no response for great striking performance of the Latvian, who was on the front foot in both sets, securing the comfortable victory by winning 5 games in a row in second set. Ostapenko was crucial today, as she needed just 5 breakpoints to make all the gap and converted all of them.
Barbora Krejcikova vs Liudmila Samsonova was a super quality match-up between 12th and 15th racuqet from WTA list, meeting as early as in the opening round of WTA 500 event. The Czech who plays a good season so far, having one WTA 1000 title in the tally and defeating the names like Iga Swiatek or Aryna Sabalenka, was a pre-match favorite there and proved her class by winning 6-2 6-0. First set was not such a one-way traffic performance as whole the score indicates, though. Krejcikova started with a huge hold, defending 4 breakpoints in the stunning first game which was 5 deuces long. The Czech moved into a break lead in 4th game, but needed to defend another breakpoints a game later, when she was 0-40 down on serve. Krejcikova cleared all the danger again and won whole the set 6-2, despite creating just 2 breakpoints and facing 7 on her own. Second set was a beatdown in a score, as Krejcikova bageled her opponent, but Samsonova was trying to make a fight, as this set took 41 minutes despite just containing just 6 games. Despite the effort of her opponent, Krejcikova had no trouble to score a dominant win and secured the advance into second round where she sets up her fourth clash with Sabalenka this year. The current Australian Open champion won their previous meeting in Miami easier than expected, winning 6-3 6-2, but two previous fights between them delivered great emotions and ton of tennis quality, so it is definitely a match to wait for on Thursday.
