Dominika Cibulkova stings Jen Brady for second round victory

The best part of a tennis player having bad luck in winning matches is holding on for the chance to see improvement. It happened for Dominika Cibulkova.

Last year, 2016 wasn’t too bad for Dominika Cibulkova. She’d won 4 titles: Katowice, Eastbourne, Linz and the WTA Finals at Singapore, but too many tournaments she’d lose in the second or third rounds.

This season was one filled with adversity, being determined and moving on for she hasn’t won any title as of yet. Pushing for a good run in this grass court swing is best when taking it one round at a time.

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The beginning of the year in Australia only netted her 3 rounds and the hardcourt tournaments were the same. In the clay court season, Cibulkova hadn’t been able to string three or four matches together. It might have taken from her emotionally and physically but the grass court swing she’d struggled miserably, bowing out in the opening rounds of Birmingham.

She lost to the doubles specialist and competent singles player Lucie Safarova. It was a three setter that made Cibulkova come out on the short of the match.

Then there was Eastbourne where her opponent was the town favorite, Britain’s Heather Watson, who usually is a streaky player of great unpredictability.

This time Watson had her game face on and wouldn’t allow anyone to defy her. It only took straight sets to defeat Cibulkova unlike the usual times and it left her feeling a bit inadequate. She felt hopeless and only thought of the future of doing well at Wimbledon.

Cibulkova has came into this Championship with a gleam in her eye and a spark in her statue looking forward to her first opponent – Germany’s Andrea Petkovic. The intensity was always present with Cibulkova coming on as the aggressor, pushing Petkovic back, passing her, volleying, she displayed great strategies and footwork to dictate who was the higher seed of the pair even though the Slovak slid down in ranking from four to eight and Petkovic’s ranking is near 90.

"“It was extremely tough match. I knew it was going to be a tough one against Andrea. We know each other pretty well. I think my game suits her game…” She toughened it out and won 6-3, 3-6, 9-7, giving a sigh of relief and looking forward to round number two."

As the rounds go on, many times it gets more difficult with more competitive players. America’s Jennifer Brady was more known for college tennis then crawled her way up the WTA standards but this year she’d bow out at opening rounds in all her tournaments and probably thirsty for a win past the first round.

"Brady started off aggressive and even Cibulkova admitted that “She was going for her shots and playing really fast. The serve was really hard to return”."

Both Brady and Cibulkova had similar numbers of winners and unforced errors making this match highly competitive.

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"Cibulkova’s service was very good and she says about her struggles of playing Brady that “I had to play sometimes offensive, sometimes defensive, and I combined it really well today”."

Even though Brady won well over half of the points of her first serve, winning break points mattered and that’s what was Brady’s weak point. Cibulkova took advantage of it and it wasn’t long before the victory was on her racket at 6-4, 6-4 and she is indeed looking forward to the third round with gratitude and confidence.

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