Karolina Pliskova’s Australian Open preparations were dealt a blow after losing to world number 292 Anastasia Gasanova 6-2 6-4 in Abu Dhabi.
Pliskova, who was playing her first tournament under new coach Sascha Bajin, looked out-of-sorts from the very first point as some double faults and loose errors handed a double break to the Russian.
Gasanova was making her WTA main draw debut this week and took the match to the former grand slam finalist with some consistently powerful ground-strokes and some solid serving accuracy.
Although Pliskova found her rythym towards the end of the set, she couldn’t break down the Russian as Gasanova claimed the first set 6-2 in 28 minutes.
Having made double the amount of unforced errors in the opening set, Pliskova made a much better start to the second set finding her range off the forehand side and starting to overpower Gasanova.
In the fourth game, Pliskova ramped up the intensity and pressure on the 21 year-old with some powerful returns and good construction of points to create five break points in total.
However Gasanova managed to ride the storm in what would be a massive hold of serve as she carried the momentum into the next game to break for a 4-2 lead.
The world number six used her experience to know that the match wasn’t over just yet as she managed to break to love for 4-4.
But it was another performance where Pliskova failed to impress and lacked the mental stability to keep her concentration.
The world number 292 would break straight back and close out the match in 1 hour and 17 minutes for the biggest win of her career.
It was her first top 100 victory of her career and not bad to do it against a top 10 player either.
In her press conference after the match, Gasanova was surprise herself about how well she played, “I’m really surprised, but when I woke up today, I thought, ‘Why not? Why can’t I win this match?’” Gasanova explained.
“Actually, I thought I would lose in qualies or something like that, but I just kept pushing myself, like, I need to win and I want to win.
“I had a [2021] goal to be Top 200, actually, I don’t know if I did this today, but that’s my goal. And to play against a Top 10 player is a great opportunity for me, and it’s a great chance to show how I could play.”
As for Pliskova it was another opportunity missed to show her consistency and why so many people doubt her when it comes to winning a grand slam title.
Next for Gasanova is Sara Sorribes Tormo in the last 16.
Meanwhile one grand slam title contender who did impress was Elina Svitolina after the Ukrainian breezed past Vera Zvonareva 6-4 6-1. Despite losing her serve in the second game, Svitolina broke her Russian opponent five times and won 78% of her first service points to claim victory.
Next for Svitolina is another Russian in Ekaterina Alexandrova as she defeated Heather Watson 7-5 6-7(9) 6-3.