Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova defeats Greta Arn to advance into the semis at Monterrey Open
Second seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova defeated Hungarian Greta Arn in straight sets to advance into the semis at the Whirlpool Abeirto Monterrey on Friday.
Meeting for the first time ever, without knowing much of her opponent’s game play, Pavlyuchenkova overpowered the Hungarian convincingly. The world’s number 19, Pavlyuchenkova had showed her skills at Brisbane earlier where she
reached the semi-finals before losing to Czech Petra Kvitova. But after Brisbane, she cruised to semis in this tournament after dumping the 31-years-old Hungarian.
Arn didn’t show much enthusiasm in the first set but she fired up after trailing 1-5 in the second set to force a tiebreaker.
The Russian destroyed Arn in the first set 6-2. She broke the Hungarian’s serve twice and although she had an acceptable first serve percentage, she earned a perfect 100 percent win on it. Arn, on the other hand didn’t take advantage
of the many unforced errors the youngster committed.
After leading 5-1, the Russian collapsed and Arn finally showed her colours. She won the next five games in a row due to a poor performance by Pavlyuchenkova who just registered a terrible 35 percent on her first serve. Despite
Arn committing five double faults, she took the set to tiebreaker but only to see herself exiting the event.
Lady luck doesn’t seem to be on the Hungarian’s side since she was ousted from Acapulco’s quarter-finals as well. She also lost in the first round at the Australian Open.
She will next face Argentinean Gisela Dulko in this event. Dulko has an eight match winning streak and is in her top form. She dumped Russian Ksenia Pervak with a bagel.
The top seed of this tournament, Jelena Jankovic also advanced to the semis. The Serb overpowered fifth seeded Latvian Anastasija Sevastova with a bagel.
"It's nice to get revenge but I didn't really think about it tonight," Jankovic said in an on-court interview. "I lost to Anastasija in the first round last year and this was my second time playing her, and I really wanted to get
a win. I'm happy I was able to do that."
Despite Sevastova hammering 3 aces and registering an acceptable first serve percentage, the Serb clinched the match with four break points and registered an impressive 80 percent win on her first serve.
Tags: