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Sam setting new standards after cruising through

احدث اجدد واروع واجمل واشيك Sam setting new standards after cruising through

Samantha Stosur place a stroke. 

Bernard Tomic during win against Feliciano Lopez on Hisense Arena.


SAM STOSUR is now sixth in the world and playing not like she thinks it a fair reckoning of her standing, but that she has been a bit hard done by. The crowd, not just the local loyalists in the stands, are starting to meet her in the expectation of a victory before each early round match.

Stosur's game in the past has been marked by a frailty born partly by a lack of belief. Last night's opponent, another on the Russian tennis treadmill, Vera Dushevina the world No.61, might once have presented a more awkward proposition.

Stosur is playing with such a trust in her game that she is anticipating being able to munch players from the early rounds. In the event the match inconvenienced her for just 80 minutes before she won in straight sets 6-3, 6-2.
American teen Lauren Davis in the first round was a walk in the (Melbourne) Park. Last night was a little more challenging, but scarcely more. Next up will not be so gentle. Czech Petra Kvitova, a semi-finalist at Wimbledon last year, is the world No.28 and a more difficult proposition in the third round, given she previously defeated Stosur at the French Open.

''It's probably the best I have hit the ball all summer. So I am happy with that,'' Stosur said.

Stosur took an early 3-0 lead in the match establishing the pattern of the game and asserting her authority in the contest, carrying through to take the first set. Landing 77 per cent of her first serves in that opening set, and winning three quarters of those points, she was setting up her game, as ever, with the serve. What kept Dushevina in a set that Stosur was otherwise dominating, was that the Queenslander was committing more unforced errors than her opponent (9-6).

Stosur could take comfort from the fact that by winning the first set, history suggested she was likely to win the match - for in 33 grand slam matches when she has won the first set, she has gone on to win the match. Besides the hapless Dushevina had never been beyond the second round of a grand slam before.

Stosur took a 4-1 lead in the second set but forced Dushevina to work for her victory, pushing her to a break point in one game before eventually going down 6-2.

''I think over the years I have been able to concentrate a lot better for the whole period of the match, even if I have periods where I go off with the fairies a bit it only happens for a few points and I get it back and that is what happened tonight,'' Stosur said.

Meanwhile, an exhausted David Nalbandian said the heart and energy needed to grind down Lleyton Hewitt in a gruelling Australian Open first round left him with nothing to give in the second.

Having taken almost five hours to overcome Australia's top men's player two days earlier, the Argentinian lasted just 59 minutes against unseeded Lithuanian Richard Berankis on Thursday night.

Berankis, the world No.95, who at 20 years of age was the youngest player in the year-end top 100, was blitzing the 27th seed 6-1, 6-0, 2-0, when Nalbandian pulled the pin.

''Today I was like empty, you know? It didn't feel good, it was tough, very tough,'' Nalbandian said. The Argentinian, who won just 26 points for the match, first called for the trainer at the end of the second set, and despite battling on for two more games, was never going to create a contest.

Asked what was wrong with him, he said: ''Everything. Nothing specific … I would toss a ball for the serve and everything was moving around. It's tough playing like that. I called the doctor. He told me it's dangerous playing like that, that's why I retired.''

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