MIAMI, Florida—Argentina’s Gisela Dulko played one of the best matches of her career in the second round of the 2009 Sony Ericsson Open tonight.
The unseeded Dulko ousted third seed and last year’s finalist Jelena Jankovic in straight sets 6-4, 7-6(5) early Sunday morning in Miami.
Jankovic struggled with her serve and allowed Dulko to dominate from both the baseline and at the net. Keeping Jankovic off balance was Dulko’s game plan, and it worked effectively against the former world number one.
“I tried to mix it up,” said Dulko after the match. “I think it worked very well for me tonight.”
Jelena, who has yet to recapture the form that led her to the number one ranking in 2008, also suffered an opening round upset two weeks ago in Indian Wells.
Tonight’s win was Dulko’s seventh career Top 10 win and first defeat of a Top 3 player. She will face Czech Republic’s Iveta Benesova in the third round later in the day on Sunday.
On the Baseline’s live coverage of the 2009 Sony Ericsson Open is brought to you by Grand Slam Tennis Tours.
Wow! I can not believe that Jelena Jankovic lost. I unfortunately I was not able to view this exciting match. From what I read this was such an exciting match and shocking, too. Congratulations to Gisela Dulko for advancing to the third round. She has a bright career on the rise.
What’s wrong with Jankovic? Is she having physical/mental problems? I hope it isn’t going to be her 2006 season all over again!
Another painful loss for Jelena. Sounds like she needs to take some time off and regroup. She lost her speed, which is eating away at her confidence.
I don’t know what to say. IF it is her off-season training-adding muscle-due to Etcheberry, then she needs to find someone else and work on her movement which was her “thing”. I love someone who can move around the court and is good at defense. Two 2nd round outs in a row is going to erode her confidence. She needs to think about how to regain this. The clay season is coming up and her movement on clay has been good in the past. It is a bad time to be slow. For the sake of the game and herself I hope she can find an answer. The game needs some people to grab hold of the reigns and challenge the WIlliams’. Not that I don’t like the Williams’; I just want good competition.
I agree…the Williams’ sisters victories will be that much sweeter if they faced an in form Safina, Ivanovic and Jankovic; and it would just be better for their (Jankovic, Ivanovic etc.) credibility if they didn’t keep having short spurts of excellence. I do feel sorry for Jelena though, she just wanted to be even better and took a chance on getting a weapon other than how fast she moves, it simply blew up in her face. I like Jelena’s spirit, hope she finds her rhythm once more.
I’m not suprised what little bit! Jelena said that she never run 10 Km before (which I find shocking, world class athlete, how she was preparing before, going shopping and doing photo shoots?)After training like a maniac with running pros and doing weight training which apparently was not part of her routine before (in that amount) she lost agility and speed! Ha ha, you don’t go for the intensive training in short off season and expect miracles! And in between jumping between countries and continents! So traveling for the tournaments and changing times zones and long flights and constant changes during the season is tiring, but when she does the same on her free time, it doesn’t make her tired? Week in Mexico, week in Florida, next in Serbia…I would not call it smart off season training!