IT MADE for a triple treat in the opening round of the Singapore Tennis Open yesterday when Australian Olivia Gadecki secured a victory over Japanese eighth seed Moyuka Uchijima to reach the Round of 16. Gadecki had her chances through the second set to make it an easy victory, but was made to work for it in the 6-1 6-7 6-2 victory.

For the most part, Gadecki was in control despite being broken in the opening game of the match. The Aussie wrestled back momentum and piled on seven consecutive games to go 6-1 1-0 up. A second set break and then break point in the seventh game had the Australian with the chance to serve out the match at 5-2.

Instead, Uchijima saved that break point, then created four more in the next game and with the last broke back to level the score. In the blink of an eye, the match that looked almost over was going to a tiebreaker with the Japanese seed able to bat away a sole breakpoint in the ninth game as well. However the tiebreaker was far from close as Uchijima won the first six points and easily secured it 7-1.

Gadecki showed her character in rebounding from that disappointing second set, putting the fact she had multiple chances to close it out behind her, and quickly won the first four games of the decider. Shockingly broken to love in the fifth game despite having all the momentum, Gadecki steadied to hold serve for 5-2 then break her opponent in the last game to secure the match in two hours and 15 minutes.

As the table shows above, Gadecki was clearly the better player, ahead in all the key serving statistics. Though still having her lapses, she had almost half the double faults (six to 11) and was able to generate almost twice as many break points, converting double the amount of breaks.

NEXT OPPONENT = Jil Teichmann (Switzerland)

Gadecki will need to step up her game if she is to get past Swiss qualifier Jil Teichmann who smashed British hope Harriet Dart in 99 minutes. Teichmann won 6-3 6-1 with a dominance rating of 1.38, while winning 71 per cent of her first serve points off a 67 per cent clip. Most impressively, she saved all seven break points she faced – which means the Aussie will need to capitalise on her chances – while converting four of nine off Dart’s serve.

ROUND OF 16 MATCHES

[1] Anna Kaliskaya (RUS) vs. [Q] Simona Waltert (SUI)
[2] Elise Mertens (BEL) vs. Tatjana Maria (GER)
[4] Xinyu Wang (CHN) vs. [Q] Maya Joint (AUS)
[6] Maria Camila Osorio Serrano (COL) vs. [Q] Dominika Salkova (CZE)
Cristina Bucsa (ESP) vs. [Q] Manachaya Sawangkaew (THA)
Ann Li (USA) vs. Maria Timofeeva (RUS)
[WC] Kimberly Birrell (AUS) vs. Hailey Baptiste (USA)
Olivia Gadecki (AUS) vs. [Q] Jil Teichmann (SUI)