Germany’s Andrea Petkovic in action during her first round match against  Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens at Qatar Total Open yesterday. PICTURES: Noushad Thekkayil

By Satya Rath/Doha

Andrea Petkovic began her tennis journey quite early, but bloomed rather late. Injuries, too, kept hampering her progress for the better part of her close-to-a-decade-long pro career.
But the 27-year-old German, seeded sixth at the $731,000 Qatar Total Open, never believed in throwing in the towel, even when her ranking slid from nine to 192 following a series of career-threatening injuries in 2012 and 2013.
She kept trudging along, braving pain and discomfort, week after week, month after month.
All that struggle and hard work paid off when she won three titles last year and also made it to the last four of the French Open, her first Grand Slam semifinal, to force her way back into the top 10.
She won the title at Antwerp earlier this month, but fell in the second round at last week’s Dubai Classic.
Yesterday, in her tournament opener at the Khalifa Tennis Complex here, it looked like she was back to her error-prone ways when a spate of unforced errors, mostly on her returns, saw her Belgian opponent Kirsten Flipkens take the first set 7-6, courtesy a double-fault at a crucial stage of the tiebreaker.
But that was perhaps the wake-up call the German needed as she raced through the next two sets 6-3, 6-2 to make a winning start to her Doha
campaign.
Petkovic, who has won four of her six career titles on clay, praised Kirsten, against whom she now carries a 4-2 head-to-head record.
“She is a fighter, I always struggle against her. I don’t necessarily like players who change their rhythm and play a lot of slices, I always struggle against such players and Kirsten is one such player. And I think she played really well, especially in the first set,” the German said in her post-match comments.
She said she changed her tactics a bit after the first set. “Well, I think I played really well in the third set, I played well in the second, and I played so-so in the first. I’m just happy to get through. I am happy I was able to step up my game in the second and third sets.”
Petkovic was also happy with the conditions.
“Actually today was pretty good with the wind. Yesterday and the days before, it was very windy and it was difficult to serve, but today was actually good. It was kind of windy, but compared to the other days it was still. So I felt really good on my serve and I think I served really well. I also think the timing (of the match) was really good for me, it was afternoon and it was really nice to play. It wasn’t as cold, it was beautiful. It was a pleasure to play, definitely.”
It was smooth sailing for the most of the other big names. Former top player Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, a three-time semifinalist in Doha, sped past China’s Zheng Saisai, the lucky loser who got into the main draw courtesy defending champion Simona Halep’s last-minute pullout, 6-0, 6-2.
World number 14 and ninth seed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain advanced when compatriot Garbine Muguruza retired after spraining her ankle with the former leading 6-5, while Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina took two hours and thirty-five minutes to get past the challenge of Russian qualifier Daria Gavrilova 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
In doubles, India’s Sania Mirza, who is quite popular in this part of the world, made a victorious start when she and her Chinese Taipei partner Su-Wei Hsieh made light work of the Spanish pairing of Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-2, 6-1 in just 43 minutes.
The Indo-Taipei duo broke the Spaniards’ serve in the sixth and eighth games of the first set, and then in the second and sixth of the second to make it to the quarterfinals. But it was a bad day in office for Switzerland’s Martina Hingis and Italian Flavia Pennetta, who went down to the Australian-Chinese Taipei pairing of Casey Dellacqua and Hao-Ching Chan 7-6, 6-4.

RESULTS
Singles (Round 1)

6-A Petkovic (GER) bt K Flipkens (BEL) 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-2
9-C Suarez Navarro (ESP) bt G Muguruza (ESP) 6-5 (Muguruza retired)
J Jankovic (SRB) bt S Zheng (CHN) 6-0, 6-2
K Pliskova (CZE) bt S Voegele (SUI) 7-6(4), 6-4
E Svitolina (UKR) bt D Gavrilova (RUS) 6-4, 5-7, 6-4
Z Diyas (KAZ) bt O Jabeur (TUN) 6-3, 6-2
A Dulgheru (ROU) bt A Cornet (FRA) 6-4, 3-6, 6-1.
 
Doubles (Round 1)
1-S Hsieh (TPE)/S Mirza (IND) bt A Medina Garrigues (ESP)/A Parra Santonja (ESP) 6-2, 6-1
H Chan (TPE)/C Dellacqua (AUS) bt 3-M Hingis (SUI)/F Pennetta (ITA) 7-6, 6-4
G Dabrowski (CAN)/M Erakovic (NZL) bt Yuliya Beygelzimer-Olga Savchuk 6-4, 2-6, 10-8
V Azarenka (BLR)/K Flipkens (BEL) bt F Al Nabhani (OMA)/S Zheng (CHN) 6-3, 6-4
2-E Makarova (RUS)/E Vesnina (RUS) bt D Jurak (CRO)/K Koukalova (CZE) 6-1, 6-4.

BELOW:
India’s Sania Mirza (L) and her Chinese Taipei partner Su-Wei Hsieh during their doubles first round match.