Angelique Kerber has reached the round of 16 of the Eastbourne grass court tournament with a strong performance and has taken the first step towards a successful Wimbledon dress rehearsal. In her opening match the seeded Kieler defeated the Slovak Dominika Cibulkova 6:3, 6:3.
After 1:18 hours Kerber turned her first match point on court 1. “I’m very happy with my performance,” she said afterwards. On Wednesday the two-time Eastbourne finalist will face the world rankings-43rd Danielle Collins (USA), who eliminated Spanish Carla Suarez Navarro (6:2, 6:4).
One week after their surprising first-round defeat in Mallorca against Alison Riske (USA), Kerber was in impressive form in the county of East Sussex. In the first set alone, the two-time Grand Slam winner won 16 direct strokes.
In her twelfth duel with former WTA World Champion Cibulkova, Eatbourne Champion of 2016, Kerber quickly took the initiative in the rallies and acted extremely aggressively. In addition, she could always rely on her outstanding footwork. Which was important, because the lively Slovakian (1.61 m) repeatedly operated with stops.
Symptomatic that “Angie” used her first break point to lead 2-1 in the first set thanks to a running stop ball. With her ninth winner, a cross-winged backhand, Kerber then went 3-1 to the front and benefited from a mistake by her opponent in her first set after 33 minutes, against whom she had lost the final of the Singapore WTA Final in 2016.
Kerber, Wimbledon finalist of 2016, faced her first break in the third game of the second set. But all three in a row she fought back and won the game. Annoyed, Cibulkova then gave up her service and at 3:1 everything spoke for the German number one.
However, the right-hander from Bratislava remembered her fighting qualities and equalized shortly after her first break to 3:3. Again and again Cibulkova cheered her on in her very own way. But Kerber kept her concentration and won the next three games – not least because she showed perfect lawn tennis at times (a total of 26 winners).
The sixth seeded Julia Görges failed on Tuesday in her opening match 6:1, 4:6, 4:6 due to Belarussian Aryna Sabalenka.