On Wednesday, March 20, the men’s individual first round matches of the Miami supertournament (USA) began. Today the Russian Pavel Kotov, racket number 67 in the world, played his match. His opponent was 19-year-old French tennis player Luca Van Assche, who is at the bottom of the top 80 in the world rankings. This was his first face-to-face confrontation and the Frenchman turned out to be stronger.
In the first set, the advantage was initially on Kotov’s side. The Russian took his games to love and regularly got break points on the catch, but did not use any of the three. But after 3:3 the balance tipped in the other direction. Pavel dropped the eighth game with 40:15 on serve, and this single break point was enough for Van Asch to win the game. In the ninth game, the Frenchman took advantage of the second set point: 6:3 in 42 minutes.
The fate of the second game could have been decided in the seventh game, when Van Assche achieved a break. But in the tenth game Luca could not serve for the match without scoring a single point (5:5). However, the end remained in the hands of the Frenchman: he took another break and in the 12th game he served to zero for the match: 6: 3, 7: 5 in 1 hour 40 minutes.
And in the women’s category the final matches of the first round are being played today; Unlike Indian Wells, in Miami the match schedule for men and women is not synchronized (the men’s tournament began a day later). The tournament featured a Russian derby in which 21-year-old Elina Avanesyan, ranked 65th in the WTA rankings, played against wild card Erika Andreeva, 19-year-old and world number 94. Previously, the tennis players had not faced each other.
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Andreeva completely failed the first set. Not only did he have no break points, but he didn’t even have game balls. Erica made too many mistakes and her opponent took advantage of it. Avanesyan, who controlled most of the plays, demonstrated amazing execution. Elina took advantage of all three break points and in the sixth game she served to win, hanging the shuttle 6-0 in just 24 minutes.
Before the start of the second set, Andreeva, who briefly entered the room under the stands, managed to restart. Avanesyan no longer dominated, on the contrary, the number of errors in her performance increased. For a long time, the rivals did not allow themselves to reach break points, and in the eighth game, Erica, who generally played much more actively compared to the first set, took someone else’s serve to zero and then served for the game . , converting the second set point – 6:3 in 44 minutes.
In the decisive set, Avanesyan still demonstrated his superiority. In general, the third batch turned out to be similar to the first. Elina dropped only one game and, after making two breaks, served for the match in the seventh game, winning 0:30 – 6:0, 3:6, 6:1 in 1 hour and 40 minutes.
In the second round, Avanesyan will play Ons Jabeur, a three-time Grand Slam finalist and world number six.
Finally, 20-year-old Maria Timofeeva, who reached the main draw through the national team, took to the court with former Russian and now French tennis player Varvara Gracheva. This was also her first face-to-face confrontation. Both athletes are closer to the bottom of the top 100: Timofeeva is in 99th place, Gracheva is in 83rd place.
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In the first set the game was tied until the score reached 3:3, without a single break point. And then the initiative passed to Timofeeva. The Russian won three games in a row, two of them in the reception, and achieved a convincing 6:3 victory in 37 minutes. Maria demonstrated a 100% success rate on break points: two out of two, even in the final game.
In the second game, Timofeeva took the matter to its logical conclusion. The Russian led 4:1, making two breaks against one, in the next two games the tennis players exchanged lost break points, and in the ninth game Maria, serving at 5:3, took advantage of the first match point: 6:3. , 6:3 in 1 hour 22 minutes.
In the second round, Timofeeva will fight the representative of the Czech Republic, 19-year-old Linda Noskova, who is ranked 26th.
The Miami supertournament will end on March 31. Follow all the events of the “Championship”.
