Angelique Kerber started off her 2024 Indian Wells Open campaign with a win, a very solid one over Petra Martic.
Martic is one of those tricky players that opponents can never beat easily, but this looked kind of easy for Kerber, thanks to her level. She hasn't really shined so far on her comeback, as she struggled in Australia.
It was expected that she'd do a lot better at the WTA 1000 tournament in Indian Wells after a few more weeks of practice, and she truly did. The opening set went 6-3 to her, and it mostly came down to her playing just better.
Martic really struggled with her serve and committed far too many costly double faults to keep it close. She didn't really play all that well from the baseline either, and it was just the perfect mix needed for Kerber to take advantage of.
On her own serve, the German player did more than enough because she actually served quite a bit better than her opponent. This made winning her points on serve easier and reduced the number of chances the Croatian had. The former world no. 1 had six break points, while her opponent had only two.
With the same conversion rate for both (50%), Kerber was able to break her opponent's serve three times, while Martic did it only once. It was a math problem for the Croatian, and it didn't look that better in the second part of the match.
She lost her serve early in the second set but then broke back immediately. She would then lose her serve once more, and from there, Kerber was able to finish off the match rather comfortably.
Not serving well hurt Martic tremendously, but she was also easily outplayed in the rallies. Still, this was just the best match Kreber has played this year by far, as she recorded an impressive 6-3, 6-4 win.
It's also the first time she won a WTA 1000 match in two years, and the last time she did it was exactly in Indian Wells in 2022. Up next, the German will take on the tenth-seeded Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia.
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