The score makes it look like Lulu Sun had a pretty comfortable match against Martina Okalova, and it might have been that way in the first set, but the second was anything but straightforward. Whilst Okalova contributed in fair measure to the good rallies that were scattered throughout the contest, she hit just one winner in the entire match. Okalova held comfortably to start, but it was more through Sun’s unforced errors than her own efforts, and that was a pattern that would be repeated all the way to the end. Sun hit a beautiful forehand winner down the line in the second game, but the next highlights didn’t come until Okalova was serving for the third time.
The game started with two great rallies, Okalova losing the first with an unforced error and the second when she couldn’t get enough racquet on a ball which had come off the net cord. Sun then made it 0-40 with a fabulous forehand return through the middle of the court, but five backhand errors in a row from her allowed Okalova to hold. Two of those, including the last, were unreturnable serves, but she would still have been disappointed not to have taken advantage of her first break points. Sun held comfortably to level the scores again, but the pressure got to Okalova in the next game as she got broken to love. Sun took the second point with a beautiful backhand winner down the line, but unforced errors from Okalova lost her the last two points.
Sun then had to save a break point after hitting a backhand into the net to end a good rally, and did so with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner. She held serve after the second deuce when Okalova’s forehand returns both went into the net, and that left the Slovakian qualifier serving to stay in the set. A forehand into the net from her gave Sun a set point, but Sun’s next backhand return went long. She got another set point with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner after the second deuce, but was forced into an error to lose the great short rally that followed. A backhand over the baseline from Okalova gave away a third set point, and she sent her next backhand wide to lose the set after 34 minutes. At just over six minutes in duration, that was the longest game of the match.
Sun held comfortably to start the second set and, when she broke Okalova’s serve easily in the second game, she looked to be headed for an easy win. That certainly wasn’t the case, as that became the first of five service breaks in a row, all except the last finishing with an unforced error. Okalova’s winner came in the third game, an easy cross-court forehand to end a good rally, and Sun hit two beautiful forehand returns in consecutive shots in the fourth. The sixth game became Rally City, with a great 14 shot exchange to start that was the best of the match, Sun losing it with a forehand over the baseline. Okalova lost the next three with unforced errors, but Sun won the last of the five with a backhand down the line, and then finally broke the sequence of losses by finishing the next game with an ace.
The shot of the match was Sun’s fantastic cross-court backhand return in the next game which gave her a first match point, but she overhit her next forehand return, as she did her next two shots to allow Okalova to hold serve. Sun started the last game with a beautiful forehand winner down the line, and forced Okalova into a forehand error to bring up a second match point. A great serve saw Okalova’s backhand return go into the net, and the match was over after an hour and eight minutes. The final score was 6-3, 6-3.