Anna cruises through
April 9, 2008
Second seed Anna Chakvetadze cruised to a 6-3 6-1 second round win over Japan's Ayumi Morita at the WTA Amelia Island Championships.
The Russian needed just 64 minutes to claim the victory, breaking serve seven times in a row after Morita held her opening service game.
However, the world number seven dropped her own serve on three occasions and was critical of her opening performance.
"I really didn't play that consistently or as well as I wanted to play," Chakvetadze said.
"But for a first match of this tournament and first match on green clay, it was OK. I could do worse. I just want to play more consistently, especially with my serve tomorrow."
Chakvetadze, who reached the US Open semi-finals last year, served nine double faults and lost almost half of her service games.
"I have to control myself more and hopefully I can do that tomorrow," she said looking towards her third-round match against Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova.
The 20-year-old Chakvetadze had an inconsistent season on clay last year, prompting her to skip the hard courts at Indian Wells last month to add the clay court events at Amelia Island and Charleston to her schedule.
"I wanted to prepare myself better for the red clay season. Last year my best result was the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and before that I really didn't play that well," she said.
"I can't say that clay is my favourite surface, but green clay is much faster than red. I do like green clay more than red clay but you have to get used to it.
"This is a good preparation and a good start to the clay court season."