Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova battles past Anabel Garrigues into 2nd round – Generali Ladies Linz 2011
Fourth seed, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia required three sets to overpower resilience posed by the Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues at the Generali Ladies Linz Open 2011, a WTA International Tier-II event taking place from
October 8th to October 16th in Linz, Austria. Pavlyuchenkova registered a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 victory over the Valencia native to secure a second round spot on Tuesday.
Ranked 15th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Pavlyuchenkova continued displaying her awesome run of form after overpowering the Spaniard, ranked thirteen spots below her, on their first face-to-face.
The seed nervously marched into the Intersport Arena and lost her serve in the opening game. She did recover immediately as he snatched her break back in the very next game. In addition to this, Pavlyuchenkova exchanged two breaks
from the fifth to the eighth game and then broke the Spaniard’s serve again in the last game to seal the victory by winning six games to four. She saved only one out of four breakpoints faced but converted four out of five breakpoint chances to her advantage.
Frustrated 29-year-old Garrigues turned the tables around in the second set after earning the coveted break in the opening game. She then maintained her form to pocket entire serves and extended lead after breaking the Russian’s
serve again in the seventh game. The Spaniard kept her serve once more in the last game to clinch the equaliser with an assuring 6-2 score line. She warded off all four breakpoints faced and capitalised on two out of three breakpoint chances to her advantage.
Pavlyuchenkova burst in the final set as she unleashed a flurry of groundstrokes to reel off first five games in a row before Garrigues could hold on. Regardless of losing next three games, the Russian held her serve in the ninth
game to bag the decider with a 6-3 win. Pavlyuchenkova failed to fend off the only breakpoint faced but cashed in on half of the four breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win comfortably.
Overall, the seeded Russian spilled several errors and ten double faults. However, she manifested a higher first serve share of 67 percent as compared to Garrigues’ 57 percent and registered an impressive 63 percent win on it.
The higher ranked Pavlyuchenkova will lock horns with the Romanian qualifier, Sorana Cirstea in the second round. Cirstea upset Austrian Tamira Paszek 7-5, 6-3 after saving four out of six breakpoints and converting four out of
seven breakpoint opportunities to her advantage in one hour and forty-five minutes. The qualifier was facing Paszek for the second time and after earning this straight set victory, she extended lead in their head-to-head series by 2-0.
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