I went to Daniela's match today. She played really well in the first set, serving well, striking the ball well and showing great touch while Voskoboeva was terrible. Daniela started the second set in a similar and got to 2-0, 15-40 on Voskoboeva's serve and if she'd broken then she'd have romped through the rest of the match. Voskoboeva then sterted played really well and her serve got a lot better with more power and accuracy while she cut out the errors on her groundstrokes and Voskoboeva's first serve became a weapon for her. Daniela had been hitting the ball flat for the first set and a bit but she starting hitting with more topspin and even put in some moonballs, so that levelled things up a bit. Voskoboeva played a lot better from behind in the second set as she came from 3-1 down to 3-3 and then 5-3 to 5-5, but as soon as she got level then she'd make errors again while Daniela would up her game. She broke Voskoboeva to 0 at 5-5 and then she was able to serve out the match at 6-5 on her second MP. I've got to admit I was a bit tense at the end of the second set but Daniela got the job done.
I saw a bit of Halep's match. She had no problems at all against Balducci who's a young Italian and Halep thrashed her. After the match she was hitting with her coach on one of the practice courts, she hadn't even changed or anything just went straight there from her match. The coach was giving her a better game. Kim Clijsters' daughter was playing on the next court making sandcastles with the clay. When I got to Halep's match it had just starteed while the ATP match on the next court was 2-2. Halep had won about the same time the first set of the men's match ended. It's difficult to say how well Halep is playing as she didn't get any competition in her match.
Roger Federer was having a practice match with Kevin Anderson on Centrale, so I watched him for a bit before Daniela's match. After Daniela's match I went round the grounds for a bit and saw Kuznetsova hitting with Vesnina. Kuznetsova was wearing a flourescent yellow/green t-shirt, so she could play a night match without floodlights. Baghdatis was hitting with Zimonjic next door and it looks like Zelko Krajan is coaching Baghdatis now (I thought he was still with Laura Robson but there you, shows you what I know). I think I saw Tiffany Nesfield running on a treadmill in the players gym. Daniela was with Nicolas & Nesfield and they don't give the coaches comfy chairs on Pietrangelo, the chairs are basically bar stools with a back.
Anyway, Daniela played well today, she got a good win against a potentially tricky opponent, who was tricky at times, but Daniela came through when it mattered. It was great to see her win. She gets some more points which will help her rankings.
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