Fresh off of claiming her first grass court title at the Aegon International last Saturday, 19th seed Dominika Cibulkova was made to work hard Tuesday in her 2016 Wimbledon début, battling past Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 7-5, 6-3 in an hour and 44 minutes.
With this victory, Cibulkova now advances to the second round, where she will meet Australia’s Daria Gavrilova, a three-set winner over China’s Qiang Wang just minutes after Cibulkova’s first-round victory.
Cibulkova Takes Hour-Long Opening Set
After trading holds to open the match, it was surprisingly Lucic-Baroni who was the first to settle in, sending a clear statement of intent with a pair of forehand winners to respectively set up and ultimately convert her first break point, before going on to consolidate the early break with her trademark flat hitting. Trailing 1-3, Cibulkova was in serious danger of going down a double break but fortunately, the Slovak recovered—her resilience ultimately paying dividends as soon after saving the break point en route to holding, the 19th seed earned a break of her own, breaking back to level the score at 3-all. From there, Cibulkova showed no signs of slowing down—a series of untimely unforced errors from Lucic-Baroni to put the Slovak back in front, leading 4-3.
In a tense eighth game, things appeared to have turned sour for Lucic-Baroni, who was forced to save three break points in order to attempt to stop the rot of three straight games against her. But time and time again, the world number 53 refused to give in, and with good reason. As Cibulkova struggled to take her opportunities, Lucic-Baroni took full advantage, capitalizing on a pair of errors from the Slovak to hold and restore parity at 4-all. From there, the next three games of the match would go with serve, but without both players having their fair share of chances to earn that elusive break.
But in the twelfth game, a trio of untimely errors from Lucic-Baroni would put her in grave danger of losing the opening set as Cibulkova stared down a pair of set points, having already squandered one in the tenth game. After missing the first of the two, the former Australian Open finalist made no mistake on the second, converting her third set point to take the opener 7-5 as Lucic-Baroni’s backhand missed the mark.
Cibulkova Holds Her Nerve and Serve to Seal Victory
After overcoming an early deficit to take a 74-minute-long opening set, Cibulkova picked up right where she left off in the early stages of the second set, breaking twice en route to racing out to a 4-0 advantage. With her back against the wall, Lucic-Baroni began to swing more freely and played like she had nothing to lose, ultimately recovering both breaks and reeling off three games in a row to reduce the deficit to 3-4.
But in the end, all of the Croat’s hard work and efforts were done in vain as Cibulkova would soon return the favour, breaking to take a 5-3 lead, as well as giving herself a chance to serve out the match. After the number of momentum shifts in the second set, one might have expected Cibulkova to falter under the pressure, but she did anything but that. Utilizing her fearlessly ferocious forehand to devastating effect, the Slovak soon arrived at her first match point, to which she would convert to seal a hard-fought 7-5, 6-3 victory.
Cibulkova to Meet Gavrilova Next
With this victory, Cibulkova will now meet Australia’s Daria Gavrilova, who was made to work hard in a tense three-set victory over Qiang Wang, seeing off the Chinese-woman 6-4 in the third. Despite being two players with very similar game styles, this will be the pair’s first meeting, and one of the most highly anticipated second round matches of the championships.