Tennis: German ousts defending champ

Julia Goerges of Germany plays a shot in her match against Greta Arn of Hungary. Photo / Getty Images

Greta Arn, who went on a giant-killing spree in 2011 to win the ASB Classic, could not work the same magic against Julia Goerges this time around, though not for lack of trying.

When the 23-year-old Goerges, the new crowd favourite, hit her final winner after two hours and 24 minutes of painful slog, there were no histrionics, just fatigue and relief.

"When I arrived [in Auckland] I got sick and it's been a week," Goerges said. "When you have no energy it's pretty hard to beat someone as tough as Greta."

The rematch of last year's semifinal developed into a minor classic as the world No 64 came close to frustrating the fifth seed into submission.

Goerges seemed on the point of conceding in the third set, when she called for medical attention and looked decidedly unwell. "The doctor told me my blood pressure was a little bit low and gave me some tablets."

She admitted she thought of retiring but "I'm not that type, I've retired just twice in my life".

After having her blood pressure taken, Goerges was deemed fit enough to carry on and even broke Arn in the third game.

The Hungarian broke straight back, held serve for 3-2 and at that point it seemed the only thing that could save the German was a nice, warm cup of harden-up as her will eroded with every point lost.

Maybe her coach provided it. Sascha Nensel came onto court, shared a bit of wisdom and watched as his embattled protege reeled off the next three games to win, eventually winning 7-5, 3-6, 6-4.

Goerges said she felt as if she was striking the ball well, but started making errors when she didn't have the energy to get her legs under the ball.

In the end, she said, the difference was 10 sound minutes from her and 10 uncharacteristically error-filled minutes from Arn deep in the third set to win the match.

At times the quality was not great _ both took to moon-balling for a while to frustrate each other _ but the match had enough drama to breathe life into a tournament that had meandered through the first day-and-a-half.

Goerges will continue to entertain the crowd, but one crowd-pleasing sideshow was eliminated when second-seed Peng Shuai defeated 2008 finalist Aravane Rezai in the preceding match 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Peng meets Lucie Hradecka in the second round.

In the earlier matches, third-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova cruised into the second round, taking a low-risk approach in eliminating American qualifier Alison Riske 6-3, 6-2.

That sets up another US-Russia clash, this time against the promising Christina McHale, in the second round.

All things being equal, and they rarely are, she is due to meet Yanina Wickmayer in the quarter-finals. The Belgian has made the past two ASB Classic finals, winning in 2010, and is a ruthless oppressor of lesser mortals, as she was on the outer courts yesterday, sending Czech Karolina Pliskova packing 6-3, 6-4.

Monica Niculescu, Zheng Jie, Roberta Vinci and Elena Vesnina were the other first-round winners.For the first time in tournament director Richard Palmer's memory, all eight seeds have progressed to the second round.

That has created a logistical nightmare, with some of the big names being forced to the outer courts today.

Because so many of the singles survivors are also in the doubles, there was a logjam of permutations with which tournament organisers were battling to fix today's schedule.