The first round of the Bell Challenge, in Quebec City, has come to a close, as day three welcomed the second round of the tournament. This Tier III event has now reached the quarter-finals stage and already the favourite and top seed, Nadia Petrova, has shown that she is in charge, having simply sailed through sets to confirm herself as the player to beat.
On the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, Petrova is ranked at number eleven. Her most recent match, against Varvara Lepchenko in Quebec City, was relatively easy for her, as she dominated both sets. This is the first time that Petrova has played in Quebec, but she’s done wonderfully, first winning against Lepchenko and then beating Maria Mokh on Tuesday.
Petrova started the year with a 4-9 that had taken her out of the world’s top twenty players and has gone to 40-14 as of May, the week preceding the French Open. Now, she has had two more wins this week, which means she has moved back up the world rankings and is only one spot away from the top ten. She is still going to have to make up a lot of ground, though, if she wants to reclaim the number three spot that was her career high in 2006. Petrova has given people faith that she can do it, as she is one of only five Russians that have ever reached the top three.
The other second round matches taking place on Wednesday, were won by Melinda Czink, who beat Julie Ditty; only losing two games in the entire match and by Melanie Oudin, who went from blazing through the first set, to being 5-2 down. She than came back to win the second set, beating big hitter, Olga Puchkova, who had been 2006’s runner-up. After the game Oudin applauded Puchkova’s fight in the first set, as she tried to take back the match, but then pointed out that her opponent did make more and more errors as the second set went on.
The sixth seed player, Bethanie Mattek, was able to drag herself into the fourth of the quarter-final places on Wednesday, but she certainly had a fight to get there. Her match was against Valerie Tetreault, the Canadian wildcard player and a home crowd favourite, who used the vocal support of the crowd to fight against Mattek. She sent a number of huge shots from the baseline that had Mattek panting as she tried to keep control of the game and Tetreault served twice for the match. In the end, though, after a very close three-setter, Mattek was able to finally overcome her.
The last of the first round matches was between Rebecca Marino and Jill Craybas. This game pitted the Canadian qualifier against an American veteran player, in what started off as an evenly fought contest. The first set was incredibly close, with Marino having to save five set points, on top of serving at 5-6. The second set went incredibly quickly, though, as she eventually overcame Craybus easily, to secure her place in the next round.
