Fourth seed Kaylea Sher was made to pull out all stops to win her second round match on Monday, in the second round of the Nike Juniors Tour International Masters being played in Torino, Italy.
After a first-round bye, the 14-year-old South African was pressed all the way by the unseeded German Sarah-Maria Richter, but eventually won through 7-5 7-6 (10-8) in a match that lasted just over two hours.
Sher battled with her timing throughout the match but to her credit, seemed to play her best tennis when she was down. The match started poorly for the South African and before long she was down 4-0 in the opening set.
But she rallied well to get back to 3-4, and then found herself facing three more break points in her next service game. Again she fought her way out of a hole, and went on to win the set.
The second set took a similar track with Sher always fighting from behind, until she finally went up a break at 4-3 only to drop her serve again, to take the set into a tie-break.
It was a very tight breaker with neither player giving anything but finally, on her third match point, the South African closed out the match to progress through into the quarter-finals, where she will take on the winner of the match between fifth seed Ellen Tsay of the US and Beatrice Cedermark of Sweden.
Also on day two, top-seed Vivien Juhoszova (Slovak Republic) was taken to three sets in her opening encounter at the Circolo Della Stampa Sporting, but finally managed to put her tricky opponent away 6-4 1-6 6-1.
Basak Eraydin from Turkey got herself into a 4-1 lead in the opening set but Juhoszova won the next five game to take it 6-4. However, in the second set the Turkish girl once again had the top seed under pressure and this time did not throw it away.
She built up a 3-1 lead and then won the next three games to close out the set. But once in the decider Juhoszova put it all together and soon established a 5-0 lead. Eraydin won the next game but with the Slovak on a roll, the top seed closed it out.
Neither second seed An-Sophie Mestach of Belgium nor No 6 Veronika Zavodska from the Czech Replublic even raised a sweat. Mestach defeated Emmy Rakotomaharo of France 6-2 6-0 while Zavodska defeated Italian Stefania Fadabini by the identical score.
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