Francesca Schiavone has been defeated by Marion Bartoli in the first round of the Qatar Ladies Open which is being played at Doha. Bartoli won the match in the straight sets by 7-6(5), 6-3.

In the next round, Bartoli will face Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia who made her way into the second round with a win over Bethanie Mattek-Sands of USA.

Bartoli didn’t have a good start in the match against Schiavone. She dropped her serve in the second game of the opening set and got trailed by 0-3. The next five games went with the serve and at the end of the eighth game; Bartoli was trailed by 3-5. The Frenchwoman got a breakthrough in the ninth game and then, she held her serve in the next game to level the scores.

Both the players held their serve in the next couple of games and the scores got tied at 6-6.

In the tie breaker, both the players fought hard for each and every point, but, it was Bartoli who prevailed eventually.

In the second set, Bartoli again had a poor start and she dropped her serve in the very first game. But, she recovered quickly by breaking Schiavone’s serve in the second game. There were no breakthroughs in the next three games and at the end of the fifth game; the score was 3-2 in the favour of Bartoli.

In the sixth game, Bartoli managed to sneak another breakthrough and then, by serving out the next game, she got ahead by 5-2. Schiavone desperately needed breakthroughs to prevent Bartoli from running away with the match, but, she didn’t succeed in that. With a serve hold in the 9^th game, Bartoli won the match and cruised into the next round.

Francesca Schiavone has been defeated by Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic in the first round of the Australian Open 2013. Kvitova won the match in the straight sets by 6-4, 2-6, 6-2. She took approximately two hours to win the match.

Kvitova’s form hadn’t been that good before coming into this tournament. She had been thrashed in the first round of the Apia International Sydney Tennis tournament by Dominika Cibulkova and then, she was knocked out from the second round of the Brisbane International Tennis tournament last week.

Kvitova struggled a bit in this match as well. She made a total of 42 unforced errors and also served 9 double faults. But, despite making quite a few mistakes, Kvitova managed to get better of Schiavone.

Kvitova got a couple of breakthroughs in the first set and won the first set easily by 6-4. But, in the second set, she failed in capitalizing on the chances that she got. She got four breakpoints, but, she couldn’t convert any of them. She paid the price for that and ended up losing the second set by 2-6.

But, in the final set, Kvitova bounced back. She held all her serves and broke Schiavone’s service twice to win the third set and thus, the match.

In the post match interview, Kvitova said, “I could have performed better, but, I am happy with the end result. This year hasn’t been good for me so far. I was knocked out early in the last couple of tournaments. I don’t want the same thing to happen in this tournament as well. I want to go all the way through and win the tournament. That would make up for my failures in the last two events.”

In the second round, Kvitova will take on Laura Robson of Britain.

Francesca Schiavone will start her 2013 season by participating in the Hobart International Tennis tournament which is going to start from 4^th of January. Apart from Schiavone, some other top ranked players including Sorana Cirstea, Vera Zvonareva, and Su-Wei Hsieh are also going to participate in this tournament. But, Schiavone has more experience than all these players and she is the top favourite to win this tournament.

Schiavone didn’t have a very good 2012 season. When she had started the season, she was at no. 11 in the official rankings of WTA, but, she ended the season as the no. 35 player in the world which indicates how poor her performance was in the 2012 season.

Schiavone played 47 matches in 2012 out of which she managed to win only 25. She won only one title in the 2012 season i.e. WTA event at Strasbourg. She defeated Alize Cornet of France in the final match of that tournament in the straight sets. After that, she didn’t manage to reach the final of any tournament.

Confirming the participation of Schiavone in the Hobart International, the tournament director Mark Handley said, “We are delighted to inform you all that Francesca Schiavone will take part in the Hobart International Tennis tournament next year. She is a star player and a Grand Slam Champion. So, she will definitely increase the popularity of the tournament and will draw more and more people towards the Domain tennis centre.”

Handley also said that talks are going on with some other players as well and he would confirm their participation in the following weeks. The tournament is going to be played on the hard courts of Tasmania. So, it is a perfect warm up tournament for the players before the Australian Open.