The tennis player from Rosario Nadia Podoroska beat the Slovenian Tamara Zidansek today. The victory came in straight sets, a 6-0, 6-1 that marked his debut in the new edition of the Australian Open.
Podoroska, number 63 in the WTA rankings, defeated Zidansek (99th) after an hour and 15 minutes of play on Court 8 of the first Grand Slam of the season.
The best Argentine player will face the American Amanda Anisimova (339th) in the second round, who is coming off a setback: she beat the Russian Liudmila Samsonova (6th) in two sets, 3-6 and 4-14.
Through solid play, Podoroska built a seamless match, where she gave Zidansek no chances. In fact, he settled the first set in just 35 minutes.
Podoroska, who had been suffering from physical discomfort before her first game in Melbourne, had a record against the Slovenian, who won both times they previously met: Hodmezovasarhely (Hungary) and São Paulo (Brazil).
Podoroska easily beat Tamara Zidansek.Photo: AFP
The Rosario native advanced to the second round of the Australian Open for the third time in her career and earned her most comfortable victory at a Grand Slam.
"I'm happy with how I played, because the first rounds in this kind of tournaments are always tense. Last week I hadn't been able to compete well, but I was able to prepare well these days before," Podoroska said after the match in front of ESPN's microphones.
Nadia highlighted two break points that she was able to save to take a 4-1 lead: "It was key at that moment to hold serve, I had to save two break points, but it was important because being up on the scoreboard helped me later to loosen up more. In general, I had several chances, I was able to play very aggressively, there were several long points that also serve to loosen up a bit more. What I take away is the mental level to be focused on each point, I was nervous, but having order and strategy all the time, no matter how much I made mistakes or got it right, that gave me confidence"
With this victory, Nadia Podoroska cleared up doubts after her fall last week in Hobart where she had entered the main draw as a lucky looser but ended up withdrawing in her debut against Germany's Tatjana Maria due to a shoulder problem.