Alberta Brianti overcomes Irina-Camelia Begu to clear the opening round – Budapest Grand Prix 2012
Another stunning result was witnessed in the opening round of the Budapest Grand Prix, as the 104th ranked Italian, Alberta Brianti, hunted down the world number 56, Irina-Camelia Begu, in a taxing encounter on Tuesday.
She formulated a 6-4, 5-7, 6-3, win over the eighth seeded Romanian to reach the second round of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) Tour-level event in Budapest, Hungary.
The gruelling battle continued for two hours and 45 minutes before settling in the favour of Brianti. The unseeded Italian avenged her last year’s defeat at the hands of Begu, who defeated Brianti in a clay-court event in Marbella,
Spain. The Romanian posed a decent competition in Tuesday’s matchup but couldn’t deliver the decisive blow to turn the results in her favour. The Italian contender registered her ninth victory of the running season to level the head-to-head series at 1-1.
The 32-year-old Italian veteran displayed her amazing resilience and clay-court tennis skills to tackle the tricky game play of Begu. She had her impact early on the match with a ballistic start in the opening set, launching her
onslaught straight away. She nailed three break points in reply to Begu’s two serve breaks and cruised to 6-4 to pocket the opening set in style.
Tide turned in the following set when the Romanian made her blistering comeback to stun her superior ranked opponent. Begu nailed two successive break points in the fifth and seventh game but dropped her own serve in the very next
game to fall back at 5-3. Brianti struck another break point in the 10th game to draw the scores level at 5-5 but the decisive serve break came from Begu in the 11th game to let her serve out of the set at 6-5.
The Romanian kept with her winning roll in the third set and a single break of serve took her to 3-1. She failed to sustain her lead in the proceeding games, as Brianti stung two more successive break points in the sixth and ninth
games to finish off the matchup at 6-3, marching into the second round of the event. A total of 219 points were played in the match, with Brianti winning 114 and her Hungarian opponent following with 105 to finish on the losing side.
The unseeded Italian will next face the Ukrainian contender, Lesia Tsurenko, for a spot in the quarter-finals. Tsurenko was successful against the local veteran, Greta Arn, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, in the opening round clash of the Budapest
Grand Prix to book a date with Brianti.
Tags: