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Austria's
Barbara Schett, the 29th seed, was too powerful for Cara Black of Zimbabwe,
winning in straight sets 6-2, 6-2 in the first round of The Championships.
Black, who reached the fourth round of the French Open last year, got off to the
worst possible start, losing her serve in the first game, and from then on never
really recovered. Schett, 26, won points throughout the game with strong ground
strokes, particularly down the lines, and held her serves easily. Black's most
effective weapon was the drop shot but even then Schett was reading many of them
and returning winners.
Twenty-three-year-old Black struggled to hold her serve in the fifth game of the
first set but lost it again in the seventh game on a double fault to go 2-5
down. Schett, who reached the fourth round of The Championships in 1999 and was
a quarter-finalist in the US Open the same year, held her own serve to love to
win the set 6-2.
In the second set, Black was broken again in the fifth game to trail 2-3. Her
game was summed up when she hit a simple smash into the net with her opponent's
court at her mercy.
Schett, who reached the third round at The Championships last year, won her next
serve to love and broke Black again in the seventh game to lead 5-2. It was only
in the eighth, and final, game that Schett was troubled on her serve, with Black
saving three match points before eventually losing the match.
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