Nadia Petrova Opens with a Bittersweet Victory

Nadia Petrova struggled with the cold and windy weather conditions in Warsaw, as she beat no-ranked Polish wildcard  entry Katarzyna Piter 6-3, 7-5, on the opening day of the J&S Cup. The 16-year-old showed an impressive fighting spirit in her very first match on the WTA Tour.
With a comfortable first set win, the world number nine allowed the opponent break her serve to take a surprising lead 2:0 at the opening of the second act. Despite breaking back, an aggressive-playing Piter stayed focussed and delivered a number  of passing shots to stay in the game and tie it at 5-5. This was enough for the annoyed Russian, who finally managed to improve her consistency, taking an advantage of her powerful serve, and easily win the last 2 games.
Petrova, who arrived in Warsaw Saturday morning, complained about the organisers’ decision on not giving her an extra day to get used to the slow and wet Polish clay. She also blamed the  lack of practice  the result for her poor performance in the first round.
“Today I was playing against two opponents, one was on the other side of the net, one on mine”, Petrova said. “I had a difficult time switching from indoors where I played Fed Cup last week, I haven’t practiced too much since then. It’s hard for me to judge my opponent, because I know if I had played my game, this match would have looked totally different.”
The Russian, who’s been living and practicing in Poland for a few years, needed no translator to understand the questions of local reporters and claimed to treat the country as her “second home”. Despite the dissatisfying Monday result, she remained optimistic about the rest of the tournament, admitting that “clay runs in her blood”.