Andrea Petkovic beats Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in quarterfinal – China Open 2011
Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, was knocked-out of the China Open in Beijing by the tournament favourite Andrea Petkovic of Germany on October 7th. The Russian’s title dreams were shattered by Petkovic who won the
quarter-final in straight sets with a score of 6-3, 7-6(2).
Pavlyuchenkova tried everything to upset Petkovic but she wasn’t to be deceived by any of the trickeries. The Russian was already lucky enough to enter into the quarter-finals as her opponent the second seed Victoria Azarenka injured
her right foot before the match giving the Russian a walkover into the semis. Pavlyuchenkova managed to survive for two hours before she was undone by the German.
Petkovic has recently been enjoying a splendid form, winning nine of her last ten matches whilst Pavlyuchenkova had a very shaky run, winning seven of the last ten matches so Petkovic with her ranking and recent form had a slight
edge over the Russian.
The German was dominant in the first set. She broke her opponent’s serve twice and maintained an enormous 60% winning point rate. She was impressive with her drop shots while her opponents were conscious about her shots and therefore
couldn’t play her natural game. Pavlyuchenckova’s overall performance was really impressive given that she had not faced Petkovic before. She managed the only ace of the set but felt short of ideas in the middle of set where Petkovic utilized her experience
and surmounted the thirteenth seed Russian.
Pavlyuchenkova appeared as a much more organised player in the second set. She created few problems for Petkovic who looked a bit rusty and tired at the start of the second set. But shortly, Petkovic managed to pick up the momentum
and prolonged the set to a tie-breaker. She managed to steal the second set with her guile and trickery and wrapped it off with a final score of 7-6(2).
Petkovic aced twice and broke Pavlyuchenkova’s serve thrice. She sealed the spot in the semi-final by pocketing 56% of the total points. Russian tried her best to pull up an upset but German did well to avoid any mishaps. Nevertheless,
it was an exciting encounter and Russian played much better than what was expected of her. Petkovic is now the most favourite to win the China Open title and is thrilled to add one more title to her tally.
The German now moves into the final to play Pole Agnieszka Radwanska.
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