Italian hopeful, Pennetta, sails through to second round

Third time wasn’t the charm for Edina Gallovits. Three US Opens...three first round exits.

Gallovits brought her fighting spirit to the second set of her match against the newly-ranked No. 10 Flavia Pennetta, but it wasn’t enough to stave off the Italian as she begins the US Open following what may be the most successful summer of her career.

Pennetta became the first Italian woman to reach the Top 10 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour on August 17 and looks poised to make a strong showing at the US Open this year. Pennetta took the Los Angeles Women’s Tennis Championships title on August 9, beating Samantha Stosur in the final. That victory, along with semifinal appearances in Cincinnati (which included a straight-set win over Venus Williams) and New Haven, helped Pennetta gain enough points to come in second place in the Olympus US Open Series, the lead-up to the US Open.

Pennetta made short work of the Romanian in the first set, racing away with it 6-0 in only 20 minutes.

Gallovits just could not find her rhythm in the first set, double-faulting away her first two service games and was not able to find an answer for Pennetta’s serves.

But Gallovits made a resurgence in the second set and began with a strong start, holding her first service game at 40-0. Gallovits seemed to be getting at Pennetta, who at 2-2, double-faulted at her game point, making it deuce. But Pennetta showed why she is now ranked among the top 10 in the world as she quickly followed that up with an ace and went on to hold serve.

It is that kind of performance under pressure that will help Pennetta move forward in the next two weeks.

As Gallovits continued to settle into her rhythm, the points lasted longer and longer. Gallovits knows how to stay in the game, hitting well-placed floaters when needing time to recover, which Pennetta just could not put away.

The deciding moment came in the seventh game of the set as Pennetta managed to convert the first of two chances to break Gallovits for the first time in the set to take the lead at 4-3. She then tore through her next service game, taking it 40-0.

But Gallovits did not give in, saving two match points to hold serve and make it 4-5.

Serving for the match, Pennetta outlasted her opponent in the following game, despite a hard-fought performance by Gallovits, who ran Pennetta all over the court. But Pennetta converted her third match point, taking the match 6-0, 6-4.

Pennetta faces Sania Mirza of India next as she hopes to beat her best US Open performance, when she made it to the quarterfinals in 2008.