Peer wins first-round Australian Open match
ISRAELI tennis player Shahar Peer has won through to the second round of the Australian Open after defeating Czech player Lucie Hradecka 6-7, 6-2, 6-1.
ADAM KAMIEN AT MELBOURNE PARK
ISRAELI tennis player Shahar Peer has won through to the second round of the Australian Open after defeating Czech player Lucie Hradecka 6-7, 6-2, 6-1 on Wednesday (January 20).
Peer, the 29th seed, looked sluggish in the opening set and struggled to find her rhythm against Hradecka, who served powerfully in the early stages of the match.
Peer gave up an early break in the first set when she failed to hold serve in the eighth game. The rest of the set went on serve to the tie-break, where Peer quickly fell behind 5-1. She clawed her way back to 5-6, fending off a set-point in the process, before Hradeka produced another big serve to take it 7-5.
However, Peer found her range midway through the second set and began to dominate proceedings from the back of the court. She broke in the fifth and eighth games of the second set, with Hradecka gifting her the latter with four double faults.
Peer dominated in the third set, and was further aided by a hefty unforced error and double-fault count from Hradecka, who was beginning to become frustrated.
With little help from her booming first serve, Hradecka was unable to match Peer’s superior ground strokes.
At the post-match media conference, Peer said: “I played her [Hradeka] last year and lost in straight sets. She is a good player and has a big serve, but she is not always consistent and I think that’s the main thing with her.
“I had to play good and be aggressive, because she tries to dominate points pretty early, so my main goal was to be solid but also aggressive. I tried to combine those two and return well too and I think I did it quite well.”
Peer will play unseeded Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova in the second round.
At the media conference, Peer talked down threats to her security when asked whether the recent spate of anti-Israel protests had affected her preparation.
“There is security going on around me, I don’t know exactly how much but I feel really safe,” Peer said.
“I’m just focusing on playing tennis and I’m not here to focus on my security or what’s going on outside the court.”
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