Mertens ready for a repeat

SECOND seed Elise Mertens’ Hobart International defence continues to gather steam with the Belgian earning a straight-sets passage to the quarter-finals yesterday. The world No.36 traded breaks with plucky Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia in the second set b

ELISE Mertens has managed to prolong her campaign for a second Hobart International title as she moves into the quarter-finals.

In a tough match yesterday afternoon the Belgian eliminated Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-4, 6-4.

Mertens, the tournament’s second seed, said: “[Haddad Maia] is a tough player with good strokes, especially the forehand and she’s dictating so I tried to play [my game], make her make some mistakes also.”

She broke Haddad Maia twice in the first set with three consecutive games to finish and continued the streak into the second set with an aggressive first-game break.

Haddad Maia broke back in the fourth game to equalise at 2-2 but Mertens broke two more times before completing the match by holding serve.

“At the end, it was a really tight match,” Mertens said.

Ranked 36 in the world, Mertens was riding high after playing three impressive matches at the Hopman Cup in Perth last week.

She beat Canadian Eugenie Bouchard, Australian Daria Gavrilova and lost to German Angelique Kerber.

“It gave me some confidence so I tried to play aggressive, to put some offence in my serve, and just to play a bit more on her backhand maybe and then match.”

If successful in defending her title, it would be the first time a competitor has won the Hobart International twice in the tournament’s 23-year history. However, Mertens said she wouldn’t let the pressure of defending a title get to her.

“It’s a pressure you build yourself I think, too, but yeah maybe there’s some pressure, but for now I’m just feeling free.

“Of course it’s on your mind to defend the title but also just to look at it match by match and see what your level does.”

Mertens said she will watch her potential quarter-final opponents Monica Niculescu, from Romania, and Varvara Lepchenko, from the US, but had no preference of who wins.

“For me it doesn’t matter [who wins] I’ll just try to play my game and I’ll see,” she said. try to dictate the