Alona Bondarenko battles past Ayumi Morita into 2nd round – Western & Southern Open 2011
Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko needed a third set to overwhelm threat posed by the Japanese Ayumi Morita at the Western and Southern Open 2011, a WTA Premier 5 event held on the hard courts in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, Ohio,
USA. She earned a 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 victory over the 21-year-old Japanese to advance into the second round on Monday.
Ranked 139th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Bondarenko got into the main draw due to protected rankings. She displayed exceptional skills in her opening round match against the Japanese, ranked ninety-one
places above her, at the Lindner Family Tennis Center on their first face-to-face.
27-year-old Ukrainian made a nervy start as she lost her opening serve in the first game to eventually trail 0-2. However, she roared back by unleashing flurry of groundstrokes to reel off next six games in a row and clinched
the opener with an assuring 6-2 score line. Bondarenko failed to ward off the only breakpoint faced but capitalised on three out of four breakpoint chances to her advantage to win easily.
The higher ranked Japanese went into overdrive mode in the second set to pull out the equaliser. She faced zero breakpoint and converted one out of two breakpoint chances to her advantage to win the set by winning six games to
four. Morita smoothly held her entire serves and clinched the set with a 6-4 win after earning the coveted break in the third game.
Bondarenko brought to light her old rhythm and after breaking the Japanese’s opening serve, she went 2-0 up. Despite levelling the scores at 2-2 afterwards, the Ukrainian outburst her skills to wipe out last four games consecutively
to bag the decider with a 6-2 win. She saved three out of four breakpoints faced and converted three out of five breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
A former top twenty, Bondarenko snapped out from a four match losing streak after this victory. This is her fourth victory of the season so far after losing seven matches.
Next up for the Ukrainian is the eighth seeded French Marion Bartoli who received a first round bye after being a top eight player in this Premier 5 event.
World number nine, Bartoli is in awesome form this season as she made title round appearances at Indian Wells, Strasbourg and Stanford and she clinched title at Eastbourne. The Ukrainian needs to raise the bar of her game to upset
the Frenchwoman.
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