After a very quiet debut last Tuesday, Belinda Bencic was more demanded in her second game at the Australian Open. The number 10 in the world surpassed the North American Claire Liu, 62nd in the ranking, by 7/6 (7-3) and 6/3 in 1h51 of departure. This was the seventh consecutive victory for the Swiss, champion in Adelaide last Saturday.
Bencic now faces the Italian Camila Giorgi, 70th in the ranking, who overcame the Slovakian Anna Schmiedlova by 6/4, 6/3. The Swiss leads the record against Giorgi by 3-2, but they have not faced each other since 2019.
Despite the victory in straight sets, Bencic needed to show power of reaction. She even broke down twice in the first set and lost by 5/2, but saved two set-points and started to pressure the opponent’s serve more frequently. The Swiss had two chances of breaking the 5/5, but only won the partial tiebreak.
The second set had more ups and downs and a sequence of five breaks in a row, but this time Bencic was ahead on the scoreboard the entire time until he made it 4/2. After that, the Swiss only lost two more points in their service games to define the victory. Liu even made more winners in the match, 28 to 19, but committed 41 unforced errors against just 21.
Beaten by Bencic this Thursday, Liu was looking for her second victory against the top 10, after having beaten Ons Jabeur last year in Monastir. The 22-year-old made her second appearance in the main draw in Melbourne, having fallen out last year on her debut.
