Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova crashes out to Maria Sanchez in the opening round – Rogers Cup 2011
Fourteenth seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova fell to Spanish qualifier Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez after taking a first set lead in her opening round match at the Rogers Cup 2011, 122nd edition of the Canadian
Open held on the hard courts in Toronto, Canada. She suffered a brutal 6-3, 4-6, 1-6 defeat against the 28-year-old Spaniard on Monday.
World number thirteen, Pavlyuchenkova went into overdrive mode to pull out a quick victory in the opening set. However, she ran out of steam and eventually crashed out from the opening round on their first meeting.
The seeded Russian confidently entered the Rexall Center in Toronto and made quick in-roads. She failed to ward off the only breakpoint faced but capitalised on both breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to win the opener with
a 6-3 win. Pavlyuchenkova produced a lower first serve share of 50 percent as compared to Spaniard’s 55 percent but registered an exceptional 73 percent win on it.
The qualifier on the other hand raised the bar of her game in the second set. She completely outshined the higher ranked player by producing a better first serve share of 65 percent as opposed to Russian’s 56 percent and registering
a plausible 55 percent win on it. Sanchez took full advantage of the many unforced errors and double faults Pavlyuchenkova coughed and saved three out of five breakpoints conceded. The Spaniard then sugar coated the set by cashing in on all three breakpoint
chances to her advantage and sealed the equaliser with a 6-4 win.
20-year-old Pavlyuchenkova carried her losing ways in the final set. She squandered all three breakpoint opportunities and failed to save either of the two breakpoints faced. Despite clobbering a higher first serve share of 64
percent and registering an impressive 67 percent win on it, the Russian registered a poor 1-6 defeat.
Pavlyuchenkova had an awesome start of the season as she made a semi-final berth at Brisbane and then triumph the title at Monterrey. Later she made quarter-final appearances at Madrid, French Open and Baku before entering this
event.
A former world number nineteen, Sanchez on the contrary had a poor season until she raised her form in July. She reached the last eight at Bastad and then outclassed everyone to clinch the title at Bad Gastein. She kept her winning
streak in this event and overpowered Australian Monique Adamczak and Georgian Anna Tatishvili to enter the main draw.
Sanchez will move on to face the winner of the match between Slovak Daniela Hantuchova and Argentinean Gisela Dulko.
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