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Erakovic Wins First Round At Wimbledon

Wednesday 27 June 2012, 2:41PM

By Tennis New Zealand

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New Zealand tennis player Marina Erakovic has started her 2012 Wimbledon campaign with a solid straight sets win over Poland’s Urszula Radwanska 6-4 6-4 in the first round.

The match took just over an hour and a half and saw Erakovic hit 33 winners and only make 15 unforced errors.

In both sets Erakovic found herself trailing, but was able to fight back from 2-4 in the first set to finally break the 54th ranked Radwanska in the 10th game to take the set 6-4.

In the second set Erakovic ranked at 49 found herself down 2-3 but broke back to level at 3-3 before holding her own serve to go ahead 4-3 as games then went with serve until Erakovic broke Radwanska in the 10th game again to triumph.

In the second round Erakovic will play Roberta Vinci from Italy who has a current WTA ranking of 23 and is a top 10 doubles player. They have not played against each other in singles.

The best result in singles at Wimbledon for Erakovic was in 2008 where she reached the third round. Last year she progressed to the second round before being beaten by Daniela Hantuchova.

Erakovic is likely to play her doubles first round with Thai player Tamarine Tanasugarn tonight (New Zealand time). They have a difficult first match against the Chinese pair of Jie Zheng and Shuai Peng who beat Erakovic and her partner Monica Niculescu in the second round at the French Open recently. In 2011 Erakovic and Tanasugarn reached the semifinals of the doubles at Wimbledon.