Alexandra Panova upsets Mandy Minella in the opening round - XX Copa BBVA Colsanitas 2012
Russian tennis ace, Alexandra Panova, swept away the 26-years-old contestant, Mandy Minella, in the opening round of the XX Copa BBVA Colsanitas. It was relatively a stiff battle between the two performers and surprisingly
the inferior ranked Russian ousted the Luxembourg participant, Minella, in three-sets 4-6, 7-6(8), 6-1.
On Tuesday, both players locked horns for the first time in their professional careers taking on the battle to the last stage before the Russian registered an upset; defeating the 95th ranked contestant.
A sizeable crowd was witnessed at the sporting arena to watch this classic match.
The opening set was pretty sloppy from the standards of both contenders, especially the initial few games. Both players were capitalizing on their serves and not taking any sort of chances to impose any threat to their opponents.
The see-saw battle continued for quite some time whilst the scores pushed to 4-4.
There was one occasion in the seventh game when the Russian was under the cosh; struggling to hold on to her serve. She saved a breakpoint on that stage which proved critical at the end. In the ninth game, same happened to
her. She was pressurized by her counterpart but immense confidence and cautious shot selection helped her to save another break point.
Suddenly, the Russian turned the tables on her opponent. She went out with an all-round onslaught in the tenth game. A couple of eye-startling winners down the line gave her the initial lead in the game. Her opponent couldn’t
handle the pressure and committed a critical double fault that was enough to leave her with three successive match points. She wasted no time in gobbling up the opening set and progressed ahead to a possible upset.
Minella bagged the opening game of the set second and broke serve to double the lead. Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t hold on to that lead for long. Panova bagged the following two games that levelled the scores at 2-2.
A trade of breakpoints in the seventh and eighth game kept the scores together at 4-4. No more breakpoints were witnessed and the tie-breaker round was enforced. After an intense battle, it was the superior ranked contestant,
Minella, who bagged the second set.
Panova started the final set and spared just one game for her opponent; cruising ahead with three successive breakpoints. She faces the fifth seed Argentine, Gisela Dulko, in the second round of the tournament.
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