2011 Brisbane International: Top seeds topple in the women’s singles draw
Seeds toppled at the 2011 Brisbane International on Tuesday as the event entered its third day of play. The Top 2 seeds were forced to exit the event following their second round clashes today.
The first seed to topple in the women’s singles draw was Samantha Stosur as Jarmila Groth forced the exit of the top seed and compatriot. Groth had moved into the second round after doing away Arantxa Parra Santonja while Stosur
moved ahead defeating qualifier Lucie Hradecka. Although there was much disparity in the rankings, given Stosur’s career high ranking of sixth in the world, Groth, in a surprising turn of events, defeated Stosur in straight sets. Opening service, Groth raced
to a 4-0 lead before extending it to a 6-2 win in the first set. Though she stuttered in the second set making it seem it would go into the decider, Groth bounced back to wrap it up with a 6-4 victory.
Serving nine aces and losing only fourteen points on service, Groth defeated Stosur in seventy-eight minutes moving into the quarterfinals where she will play either Jelena Dokic or Andrea Petkovic.
Talking about her victory she said, “I’ve played her before and we practised together a couple of days ago and, I guess, I had some sort of idea what I wanted to do and tonight it worked very well. I haven’t played her for two
years, so it helped, it gives you a gauge of what you can expect. I was trying to be aggressive attack with my second serve to make her go on the run, to try to play through the backhand side to try and make her run to her forehand,”
Admitting defeat without any regrets, Stosur said, “She made one error in the first set and hit 12 winners. Sometimes practice sessions you look at your opponent a lot and for me, I’m more concerned about what I’m doing and my
game rather than worrying about what my opponent is doing in a practice session. It’s no real secret how we both play so regardless whether we played the other day we both have a fair idea of each other’s strength and weaknesses.”
The second seed topple of the day came in Israeli Shahar Peer when she was defeated by Lucie Safarova. Peer had sailed into the second round after a straight set victory over wild card entrant Sophie Ferguson while Safarova had
moved into the second round after a hard fought battle with Akgul Amanmuradova.
Bouncing back from one set down, Safarova slapped a breadstick win over Peer in the second before wrapping it up with a close 7-5 in the decider. In a match that last two hours and thirty minutes, Safarova served two aces losing
only forty two percent of her points on service.
Safarova goes on to play fifth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarterfinals. Beaming with confidence after her victory over Peer, Safarova might move past Pavlyuchenkova to find a spot for herself in the semis.
Moving past Alla Kudryavtseva on Sunday in the first round and then past Bojana Jovanovski in the second round today, Pavlyuchenkova made her way into the quarterfinals.
Pavlyuchenkova served ten aces, committed no double faults and lost only fourteen points on service to wrap up a 6-2, 7-5 straight set victory over Jovanovski.
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