Internazionali BNL d'Italia - Angie def Diyas 6-2, 7-6(6)

No one said it was gonna be easy and even finishing it in 2 sets, was a little bit of a tour de force for our favorite.

Let see how it happened - Diyas served first, but even if Kerber broke, we felt it wouldn't be that easy.  Several points were well battled but in the first set, Angie managed to win points when it  mattered the most and she sure was ready to run for it.  One of the most incredible point was indeed on an incredible distance lenght ran by the German to retrive a smash from one side of the court and than run to the other to hit a winner.  Her forehand was definitively a weapon of choice today, often powerful and precised.

It the second set, there were a slight momentun shift probably caused but he intensity needed to close the first set, and Diyas took the lead 3-1.  Despite trailing a break down, Angie hung on to finally level up the match in an impressive manner playing some awesome tennis when she needed it to break her oppenent as she was serving for the set.   A little hip cup when serving at 5-6, she even saved a set point to finally forced a tie-breaker, which she won, not without a fight, 8-6.



"I'm actually happy after the last two weeks that I'm back," Kerber told WTA Insider after the match. "After Stuttgart it was a really tough time because I had a lot of pain in my leg, and now I can say I was without pain the whole match and I could play my game like I practiced the past few days.

"It was a bit up-and-down match, but at the end, I think the whole match was a good match from me. Especially because it's the first round, the first match on clay outside, it's always a little bit different and tricky, but I think the whole thing was a good day."

"I'm really happy to be on court again and after the practices, and the treatments I had, I'm quite happy about the performance today," Kerber added.

"For me, it would be good to have as many matches as I can...before going to Paris. I'm just looking match-to-match, and I don't have too big of expectations for this tournament. I try to play as good as I can, and make the transfer from the practice to the matches, and going to Paris with a lot of confidence."