Tennis
Julia Grabher celebrated a successful start at the dress rehearsal for the French Open in Paris. Austria’s number one prevailed on Tuesday at the $259,303 WTA 250 clay court tournament in Rabat against Belgian Ysaline Bonaventure after a hard fight 6:7 (3/7) 6:4 6:2 and made it into the round of 16.
In the duel between numbers 74 and 81 in the WTA rankings, the duel developed at eye level from the start. In the first round, both players initially brought their service through, but after deflecting two breakballs, Grabher took the service from the Belgians to lead 5:3, but then missed two set balls on his own serve and conceded the rebreak. Bonaventure then clearly won the tiebreak with 7/3.
In the second round it went back and forth. Three breaks from Grabher faced two from the Belgian, whereby Bonaventure was able to fend off two set balls from the Austrian at 3: 5 and shortened it to 4: 5. Bonaventure then brought her service through after defending two more set balls from Grabher, but the Vorarlberg player then used the fifth chance on her own serve to equalize the set.
In the decisive third round everything went well for Austria’s number one. Despite a break to make it 1:1, Grabher was quickly 5:1 ahead, initially missed a match point when the Belgian served, but then served it out confidently to win the match after 2:23 hours. The next opponent in the round of 16 is Turkey’s Cagla Büyükakcay, who surprisingly won 7:5 6:4 against the number seven seeded Czech Linda Fruhvirtova.
WTA 250 tournament in Rabat
(Morocco, 259.303 Dollar, Sand)