Angelique Kerber suffered a huge scare against veteran Francesca Schiavone in the opening round of the Monterrey Open, eventually coming through in three sets as she progressed to the second round where she would face Mandy Minella.
Kerber had a slow start to the match as usual after she was broken in her opening service game of the match, trailing by a 0-2 scoreline within a blink of an eye. Schiavone managed to consolidate the break and extend her lead to a formidable three games before Kerber finally got herself onto the scoreboard when she comfortably held her serve to love with some consistent first serves. The veteran was then just two games away from winning the first set when she held her serve for a 4-1 lead, with Kerber looking nowhere near her best level. Fending off two break points in the process, Schiavone got through a nervy game to continuing holding onto her lead and placed herself in an advantageous situation to close out the first set after she had a 5-2 lead. That was when Kerber started her comeback trail as she successfully held her serve to stay in the set for at least one more game, and took advantage of a double fault by Schiavone on break point in the ninth game for Kerber to return on serve all of a sudden. However, while serving to stay in the set for the second successive time, Kerber succumbed to the Italian’s amazing level of tennis as she conceded her serve for the second time in the evening to lose the first set 4-6.
In a set that barely took 20 minutes, Kerber then made the perfect reply as she stepped up her game and broke through the solid Schiavone game, breaking serve for the fourth time in a row to seal up the impressive bagel set as she looked to have committed herself fully into the match, having the momentum along with her going into the decider.
Kerber then had the perfect start to the final set as she broke serve in the opening game, before holding her serve to consolidate the break of serve and extending her run to eight consecutive games. Schiavone finally stopped her rout when she held her serve to love and managed to prevent herself from falling further behind on the scoreboard. There was a string of service holds which followed, and eventually the match ended with nine consecutive holds of serve after Kerber successfully served out the match after missing a match point in the previous game.