BNP Paribas Open

Ana couldn’t fully defend her chances at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells and was eliminated by Karolina Pliskova in the third round. The 28-year-old suffered from knee and abdominal pains during the tournament, but will be recovered to compete at the Miami Open next week.

Ana received an opening round ‘bye’ as she entered the tournament as the fourteenth seed but was again given a challenging draw, facing world No. 45 Camila Giorgi in round two. The Italian moved past Germany’s Julia Goerges and is known to step up against the top-players.

So she did against Ana and, after trailing 2-1, Giorgi reeled off five games to wrap up the opening set. The Italian was the more aggressive player and displayed a wide range of powerful groundstrokes while Ana was too erratic in the opening set.

The 2008 champion raised her level and earned a break in the early stages of set two to gain control over the match. She was now steering the rallies herself and added a second break after some high-quality exchanges.

A decider was to follow. Both players surrendered their serve three times in the third set and, although Ana had to get rid of two match points, the contest was forced into a tiebreak. Ana got loudly encouraged by the audience and she earned her first match point for her account at 6-5. After two hours and 6 minutes, she emerged victorious to set up a third round match against Karolina Pliskova.

Ana had never beaten the Czech in their three earlier meetings and was again forced on the backfoot from the very beginning. She lost serve in the opening game, fought back to level at 2-all, but couldn’t recover from a second break. 

The former world No. 1 was clearly obstructed by physical issues and was unable to get another game on the scoreboard, falling to defeat in just 49 minutes.

Results

R1: BYE

R2: Ana vs. C. Giorgi (WTA-45)        2-6, 6-2, 7-6(5)

R3: Ana vs. K. Pliskova (WTA-19)        2-6, 0-6