Roberta Vinci fell to a shock defeat to Taylor Townsend in the second round of the Miami Open, looking out of sorts throughout the match as the American looked to be in great form, progressing to the third round for the first time in her career.
Townsend overcomes slow start
Vinci had the fast start to the match as she came out firing, unusually being on the offense from the first point onwards. This tactic actually proved effective as her offense always managed to force errors out of Townsend in the early stages of the match, taking the early lead. However, from then on, Townsend started to dictate play with her powerful groundstrokes and Vinci looked to be unable to adapt to the wind conditions there, which allowed the American to break straight back and erase the deficit as soon as possible. The first service hold of the match then came our way as Townsend narrowly held onto her service game to take a 2-1 lead, with her groundstrokes looking really solid.
Vinci started to hand out free points due to her abundance of unforced errors, gifting Townsend yet another service break as the young American took a 3-1 lead all of a sudden. She then consolidated the break to open up a formidable 4-1 lead, looking to be halfway towards an upset. Vinci’s woes continued in the sixth game as she lost her serve for the third time in a row to allow Townsend to be just one game away from winning the first set. Despite suffering a slight hiccup while serving for the set, Townsend eventually closed out the set two games later as the American edged closer to a huge victory.
Townsend cruises to victory
With the score at 30-30 in the opening game of the second set on Vinci’s serve, it was very crucial as either the Italian would earn a game point or Townsend would earn a break point. Just then, rain started to intervene the proceedings of the match and play was interrupted. Nevertheless, when both players resumed play after the rain delay, Vinci did not seem to get affected and held her serve to start the second set the best way possible. Despite so, the Italian lost her next service game easily as the American broke serve to love, taking a huge lead of a set and a break. Just when everyone thought that Vinci was down-and-out, she proved everyone wrong by breaking straight back and leveling the scores in the set, keeping the set wide open once again.
There was a third consecutive break of serve as everything seemed to be going wrong for Vinci, gifting Townsend the lead once more. This time, the American managed to consolidate the break as she affirmed her lead on the scoreboard, edging closer to the victory. Townsend’s momentum continued to the seventh game as she broke serve for the sixth time in the match, placing herself just one game away from the victory. The American’s strong serve then helped her to seal up the huge upset in straight sets, successfully serving out the match to love and progressing to the third round after just 65 minutes of play.
