Alizé Cornet and Camila Giorgi, the finalists of last year in Katowice are still in the tournament. Alizé defeated the Dutch Kiki Bertens (6-1, 6-3), and Polona Hercoq (4-6, 6-1, 6-3) from Slovenia. Camila Giorgi won her game against Denisa Allertova from the Czech Republic. In the next round she lost the first set from the Polish Magda Linette (6-7), but she recovered in the second and third set (6-2, 6-3). Nevertheless, it was a great achievement of Magda Linette, ranked number 106 and being a qualifier, to reach the second round of the tournament and to win a set against the much higher ranked Italian Camila Giorgi (34). Afterwards she expressed her happiness with her game especially the first set. ‘ In the beginning of the match I was aggressive and played the balls close to the baseline, keeping pressure on Camila. Later on, unfortunately, I slowed down a little bit, giving her the opportunity to attack.’ Although Magda is in great shape, she was not selected to join the Polish Fed Cup team. Team captain Tomasz Wiktorowski preferred Urszula Radwanska above Magda. She seems to be a little disappointed: ‘It’s I pity he didn’t talk to me about it.’
Usrzula Radwanska was granted a wild card and is also present in Katowice, but her match against the Russian Elizaveta Kulichkova must have been very frustrated for her, since she lost this match in clear figures (0-6 and 1-6). Elizaveta underlines the fact that’s a great tlent by beating the number 5 seeded Kaia Kanapi. Agnieszka Radwanska (seeded as number one) did a better job then her sister Urszula. The Belgium people will not be very pleased by her performance. First she won her game against Yanina Wickmayer (6-1, 6-3) en later the next victim was An-Spohie Mestach (6-3, -1). But there are still three girls from Belgium in the tournament: Kirsten Flipkens, Alison van Uytvanck and Yseline Bonaventure (dubble-partner of Demi Schuurs). Except from Magdalena Rybarikova, who was seeded as number 4, the Italian Karin Knapp, seeded as number 6, and Kaia Kanepi (5) all the other seeded players are still in tournament: As mentioned Agnieszka Radwanska and Alizé Cornet and also Camila Giorgi, Kirsten Filpkens and Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
Please find below an impression of several matches and the atmosphere in Katowice.
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