Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova eases past Lesia Tsurenko in the first round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
There was huge correlation between the size of the smile of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s face and her performance in the first round of the Wimbledon Championships 2011. Fiery and brutal shots from the meat of her racquet growled
through the lawns of All England Club on Wednesday to announce her progress to the second round of the 2011 Wimbledon Championships, after her excellent 6-4, 7-6(3) win over the Ukrainian, Lesia Tsurenko.
The 19-year-old Russian tennis ace would be more than happy not only to reach the second round of the tournament but a return of the confidence that took her to the quarterfinals of the French Open, two weeks ago, as the Russian
No.4 could not find her way past the Italian, Francesca Schiavone and lost the match in a three-set marathon. However, the lanky Russian did not repeat the same mistakes and used her right-wing to devastating effect, winning the match in just one hour and
49 minutes.
Judging by the stats on the scoreboard, the Russian tennis ace had definitely drawn the blood as she broke the Ukrainian in the first game of the opening set and held her next service game to go 2-0. She continued to play with
the same level of brutality and despite being broken a couple of times; she clinched the first set with utmost ease.
Pavlyuchenkova hit four aces and 58 percent of first serve, winning a whopping 73 percent behind her first serve and 42 percent of points behind her second serve respectively. No to mention, she won 34 of 77 points of her return
and made 89 percent of net approaches to clinch the first set in just 53 minutes.
As a matter of fact, Pavlyuchenkova was mixing things up very well and her two-handed backhands were producing ferocious topspins, though she put herself in a difficult position at the start of the second set. But the Russian did
not lose self-control and immediately increased the aggression, pushing Tsurenko to deuce in the next game but the Ukrainian held and then raced to 4-2 lead after securing a single break point.
However, Pavlyuchenkova fired down a couple of winners to make it 4-3 and then secured a break to reduce the deficit, sending the set into a tie-break. Pavlyuchenkova kept her errors on tight rein in the tie-breaker and raced to
a 4-1 lead, before Tsurenko went down fighting, with some elegant forehand, but to no avail as Pavlyuchenkova had already claimed the victory.
Up next for the talented Russian is the 29-year-old compatriot, Nadia Petrova. Petrova defeated compatriot Vesna Dolonts in the opening round of the tournament.
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