Vavrinec bows out of Basel WTA tournament
The Swiss tennis star, Miroslava Vavrinec, has bowed out of the $140,000 WTA PreCon tournament in Basel after losing her second-round tie against the Czech Republic's Adriana Gersi 3-6, 6-4, 2-6.
Vavrinec’s defeat means Swiss hopes in Basel now rest solely on the 17-year-old Marie-Gaïané Mikaelian, who won through to the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Vavrinec (WTA 91) failed to make good on the promise she had earlier shown during her first-round tie against Spaniard Ana Isabel Medina Garrigues (WTA 57).
During her match against Gersi, who is eleven places lower in the WTA rankings, the 23-year-old Swiss only rarely showed good timing and failed to take control of the game.
After the match, Vavrinec blamed a lack of preparation before the start of the tournament for her disappointing performance.
“I lacked confidence during the match,” she admitted, “because I had not really done enough satisfactory training.”
Vavrinec’s coach, the Brazilian Rodriguez Nascimento, is the third she has employed since the start of the current season.
The coaching contract originally given to Sweden’s Nicklas Kroon was torn up by Vavrinec after she announced he “had not corrected me enough”, while Dutchman Ralph Kok was dismissed because “he wanted me to train in Houston”.
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