Internazionali BNL d'Italia - Angie def Begu 3-6, 7-5, 7-5

When the match begun, we knew it was going to be another hard battle, but believe me or not, I knew Angie would make it through, i didn't know how, but i knew she would.  She was not consistant when she started the match, which is usually her trademark,  but we weren't sure yet on which side the first set would go, as we felt that Begu didn't have her match plan well installed either.  As the set went by, the Romanian found her mark, but Angie had not decided yet to let go of her plan A to move on to her usually very effective plan B, which is run, return all the balls in and wait for the opening - and as the way it looked then, openings wouldn't present themselves often so we felt she was trying to create them.

Botton line, with too many unforced errors, Angie dropped the first one 6-3.  The second set started much better, how better? Angie was more consistant and shows more intensity but she had an opponent on the other side that just refused to give in.   She took the lead first, and kept it, not always in the finest way but she did it until a few unforced errors gave an opportunity for Begu to break her serve when serving for the set.  Angie mumbled a little but managed to regroup and broke again to give herself another chance to serve for the set, which she did.   A little bit of the same story in the third set, and it is all about a ridiculously low % of first serve in.  What matter at the end, is that she did find a way to win the match, which allowed us to to see this magnificent double first pumps.

In short, the hightlight video below doesn't make amend how us, fans of Angie, was on the edge of our chair during the entire game, and we did, and we would have stayed behind, no matter the result, we are just immensily happy that she finally made it a step further in Rome, a step she hadn't reached since 2012.