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By Alberto Amalfi
Photo Credit: Tony Chang/Chang Photography
(May 23, 2010) The first round has been the final stop for Gisela Dulko in recent weeks.
Since the WTA Tour moved on from Miami in March, Dulko had suffered four consecutive opening-round exits, going winless in singles play for the entire clay-court season.
Today, Dulko delivered a more momentous loss: she lost her clay-court losing streak.
Dulko dissected an injured, immobile and uninspired Victoria Azarenka, 6-1, 6-2, on Court Suzanne Lenglen to reach the French Open second round.
The 10th-seeded Azarenka was the highest-seeded player to lose on the opening day of play in Paris. The French Open is the only major which opens play on Sunday.
Fourteen of the 16 women's first-round matches played today ended in straight sets, with a pair of German women winning the only three-setters. Only Andrea Petkovic's 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win over Russian Elena Vesnina and Angelique Kerber's 5-7, 7-6, 6-4 victory over Anna Chakvetadze went the distance.
Azarenka, who wore no taping on her strained left leg, looked like she might pack it in after a set. Azarenka had difficulty moving to her right for her running forehand and simply could not run with the lithe Argentine, who grew up playing on red clay in Buenos Aires.
In her most noteworthy French Open win since she scored successive sweeps of 47-year-old former French Open champion Martina Navratilova and 20th-seeded Conchita Martinez six years ago, Dulko broke five six times and played conventional cross-court rallies in running Azarenka out of the draw.
Though the 11th-ranked Azarenka has won two of three meetings with Dulko, with all three matches contested on clay, the Belarusian offered little resistance in suffering her third straight loss. Azarenka retired from her first-round match in Madrid due to the leg injury while trailing Shuai Peng, 0-3.
Dulko made her move from the outset in setting up a second-round meeting with 131st-ranked South African qualifier Chanelle Scheepers, a 6-2, 6-4, winner over French woman Chanelle Scheepers.
Perhaps it's because at 5-foot-7, 123 pounds Dulko doesn't look imposing enough to even leave foot prints on the clay let alone diffuse tennis' power players, or because she combines the face of a fashion model with the power of a souffle chef or her recent clay-court slide, but Dulko has a history of toppling higher seeds at big events.
Earlier this year, Dulko took down Australian Open finalist Justine Henin, 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 in the first round of Indian Wells. Last June, Dulko surprised former Wimbledon winner Maria Sharapova in the second round of the grass-court Grand Slam and she opened this season defeating 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic in the second round of the Australian Open.
Dulko is fit, fast to the ball and while she has struggled in singles in recent weeks (she lost to some of the best clay courters on Tour, including Jelena Jankovic in Stuttgart and Samantha Stosur in Madrid) Dulko has been getting it done in doubles. Dulko and partner Flavia Pennetta, have won 13 of their last 14 doubles matches, capturing successive championships in Stuttgart and Rome and losing to the Williams sisters in the Madrid final last weekend. Dulko and Pennetta have reached the final in four of their last five tournaments together.