Aleksandra Krunic slays Olga Puchkova to advance into main draw – Budapest Grand Prix 2011
Fifth seeded Serb Aleksandra Krunic barely sweated to destroy Russian Olga Puchkova with a bagel at POLI-FARBE Budapest Grand Prix, a WTA Premier International event held in Budapest, Hungary. She dominated throughout the match to register a 6-0, 6-2 victory over 23-year-old Russian and advanced into the main draw on Monday.
Ranked 247th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Krunic unleashed her brilliant skills to crush the Serb, ranked 45 places below her, in just fifty-six minutes on their first meeting. She has now secured a main draw spot in this clay court tournament which takes place from 4th to 10th July.
18-year-old Serb went berserk into the opening set as she bombarded groundstrokes to reel off first six games in a row in under half hour. She faced no hindrance by Puchkova and converted three out of six breakpoint chances to her advantage to earn a bagel. She clobbered a poor first serve share of 36 percent as compared to Russian’s 47 percent but registered an amazing 88 percent win on it.
The teenager kept her momentum sailing into the final set and after she held her serve in the first game, the Serb capitalised on Russian’s unforced errors to earn the coveted break in the second game. However, she lost her serve in the proceeding game and eventually level the scores at 2-2, Krunic perfected her angled forehands and backhands to win the next four games in a row. She failed to save the only breakpoint conceded but converted all three breakpoint chances to her advantage to clinch the set with a 6-2 score line.
Krunic hasn’t had much progress this season as she lost in the early rounds at all the ITF events she entered this season. She did, however, reached the semi-final at Prague in early May before entering her first WTA event this year i.e. at Wimbledon. To her dismay, the Serb was ousted in the opening qualifier match. On the contrary, she displayed exceptional skills here in only her second WTA event.
Serb has now successfully advanced into main draw and is now aiming for the $220,000 prize money of this event.
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