Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova overcomes Eleni Daniilidou’s scare in round two – Family Circle Cup 2012
Eighth seed, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, hit back to outfox the Greek contender, Eleni Daniilidou, in a three set nail-biter at the Family Circle Cup 2012 on Tuesday. She summed up a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory against the 29-year-old to secure a place in the third
round at this green clay court event taking place in South Carolina, United States.
The Russian wild card entrant made an epic comeback from a set down to rule the match in almost two hours. The stars previously met each other at the Monterrey WTA event last circuit and after earning this success, Pavlyuchenkova extended her lead in the
head-to-head series by 2-0 against the Greek.
Ranked 67th in the WTA rankings, Daniilidou stormed into this WTA Premier event and got the desiderated break in the second game to subsequently leap at 3-0. She maintained her intensity after that and capitalised on another break opportunity
in the sixth game to extend her lead at 5-1. Despite squandering her chance to bag a breadstick, the Greek held her serve once more and sealed the opener with a 6-3 win.
The frustrated seed on the other end rebounded in the following set. She suffered the first blow in the opening game and went 0-2 down. However, the Russian recovered in the sixth game and then remained focused to keep her remaining serves. She then got
the breakthrough in the last game and pulled out the equaliser by winning six games to four.
Pavlyuchenkova kept her momentum in the final set and held her serve in the opening game. Through her blistering forehands the Russian continued plucking her remaining serves until she earned the critical break in the eighth game. Apart from losing her serve
in the proceeding game, Pavlyuchenkova cashed in her second break opportunity in the last game and clinched the decider with a 6-4 score line.
Overall, the Russian took full advantage of a number of unforced errors and 11 double faults Daniilidou committed.
The world number 22 will next confront the conqueror of the match between 13th seeded Nadia Petrova and the local qualifier, Jill Craybas.
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