Smooth wins don’t come much smoother than that earned by Li Na as she opened her account on Philippe Chatrier court this afternoon. Twelve months after she lifted the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen here, the 30-year-old Chinese notched up a straightforward first round win over Sorana Cirstea, 6-2, 6-1.
With the Romanian currently ranked 43, it all turned out as might have been expected. It was just that it was possible to hope for more, as Cirstea was responsible for the most recent first round upset of a Grand Slam when she failed to read the script before playing the newly crowned US Open champion Samantha Stosur in Melbourne in January. Cirstea silenced the home crowd by blitzing the domestic goddess in straight sets. That splendid memory must have seemed a very long time ago to her on Chatrier today.
Early mistakes from Cirstea and an excellent return by Li saw the Chinese break in the opening game. The Romanian was 0-4 down inside 12 minutes. Not a good feeling for Cirstea, a quarter-finalist here three years ago. She got her name on the scoreboard with cooler play and even managed to grab a couple of break points of her own, but Li negotiated her way out of the problem in unruffled fashion, to Cirstea’s visible annoyance. At 1-5 she unexpectedly held to love as Li took a breather, but the Chinese served out the set without drama.
Li pressed on briskly, underlining her authority by again breaking Cirstea at the first opportunity. The main talking point at courtside was the anatomically correct name for the area Cirstea had bandaged on her right arm. Was it the shoulder? Was it below the shoulder? Was it the bicep? So much easier to pinpoint the usual strapping on Li’s right knee.
As Li broke again, Cirstea spent no end of time skidding along the baseline and coming to a halt with her legs doing an elegant Clijsters-esque splits. It required outright errors from Li to get Cirstea’s name on the scoreboard at 4-1, but that was all the defending champion would allow. The match was over in 58 minutes.
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