Alexandra Dulgheru downs Jill Craybas; breezes into the second round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru dumps former top forty player, American Jill Craybas in straight sets at Wimbledon Championships 2011, a major grass court tournament held in London, England. She registered a 6-2, 6-4 victory over the
36-year-old American to advance into the second round on Monday.
Ranked 39th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Dulgheru took sixty-eight minutes to down the American in sixty-eight minutes at All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on their first meeting.
22-year-old displayed tremendous skills at SW-19 as she stormed into the opening set and plucked entire serves though exquisite forehands from her arsenal of skills. She faced zero breakpoint and converted two out of four breakpoint
opportunities to her advantage to clinch the opener with an assuring 6-2 win in just under half an hour. The Romanian committed less unforced errors and clobbered a higher first serve share of 77 percent as compared to Craybas’ 61 percent. She also registered
an amazing 80 percent win on it.
The Bucharest native, Dulgheru carried her winning ways into the second set as she held her opening serve in the second game to square the scores at 1-1. Later, she lost her serve once but roared back by breaking the American’s
serve twice to seal the set by winning six games to four in thirty-nine minutes.
The Romanian again clobbered a higher first serve share of 87 percent as compared to Craybas’s 69 percent and earned a convincing 65 percent win on it. Regardless of committing fifteen unforced errors and more double faults, she
converted two out of three breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to edge past the American.
The youngster has a poor ongoing season except for making quarter-final berths at Miami, Marbella and Brussels. She exited from the second round at French Open and entered this event after showing a second round performance at
s-Hertogenbosch.
Craybas, on the other side of net, has had a disastrous season so far. She has won only six games this year and lost fifteen games before entering this main event. The American had now extended her losing streak to four matches
and shows no chance of improvement.
Dulgheru, however, moves on ahead where she will next face twelfth seeded Russian, Svetlana Kuznetsova who bounced from a set down to win against Chinese Shuai Zhang in a three set thriller.
The Russian was shaky in the opening set and after losing her serve twice; she lost the opener with a 3-6 defeat.
Kuznetsova quickly counter attacked in the following set and after earning a single coveted break, she clinched the equaliser with a 6-3 score line in another thirty-four minutes.
The seed kept her momentum in the decider and after exchanging two early breaks, the Russian converted another breakpoint chance to her advantage to seal the deal by winning six games to four.
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