By Chris Oddo | Monday August 2, 2015
Andrea Petkovic rebounded from a sluggish start to get her hard-court season underway with a victory over Carina Witthoeft.
Photo Source: Christopher Levy
Andrea Petkovic got her hard-court season underway with a hard-fought win over fellow German Carina Witthoeft on Monday at the Bank of the West Classic, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3.
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After the match Petkovic, a semifinalist last year at Stanford, likened herself to a German diesel engine after a slow start that saw her fall behind 5-1 to the rising Witthoeft.
But the World No. 17, who rallied from 5-1 down to level at 5-all before dropping the final two games of the first set, took 12 of the final 16 games to knock off Witthoeft in two hours.
“I just played really, really bad up until 1-5,” Petkovic said. “I honestly felt like my upper and lower body were swapped, because normally you are supposed to have tension in your legs and be loose in your upper body. I was very loose in my legs but very tense in my upper body, so it was not working. After that I played fine.”
Petkovic will face either Mona Barthel or Canadian wild card Carol Zhao in the second round, and could face top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the quarterfinals.
In other first-round action on a typically idyllic Monday in Stanford, Nicole Gibbs knocked off Caroline Garcia for the second time in two career meetings with the Frenchwoman, 6-4, 7-5. Gibbs, a former Stanford standout who spent four years playing on the courts at the Taube Tennis Center, said she feels right at home playing in northern California.
“To get that in front of a home crowd was such a special moment for me,” said Gibbs, who will face either Elina Svitolina or Kateryna Bondarenko in the second round on Wednesday.
American Alison Riske was also a winner on Monday, taking out Tatjana Maria, 6-2, 5-7, 6-1, while 16-year-old California native CiCi Bellis fell to Japan’s Misaki Doi in straight sets, 3-6, 6-7(3).
“I thought I played pretty well,” said Bellis after the match. “I thought I gave her a good fight in the second.”
Bellis, who rocked the US Open as a 15-year-old last season when she took out Dominika Cibulkova in the first round to become the youngest woman to win a match at the Open since 1996, says she loves playing so close to her hometown of Atherton, California, which is just a few miles away.
“Oh yeah, this is going to be my favorite tournament every year, just because I live so close,” she said.
Rising American Madison Keys will headline Monday’s night session in Stanford, while Angelique Kerber and Sabine Lisicki will play in Tuesday’s night session.