Anna Schmiedlová baffles Elitsa Kostova in 1st round – Slovak Open 2011
Slovak wildcard entrant Anna Schmiedlová routed second seeded Bulgarian Elitsa Kostova
in three sets during the first round of the Slovak Open 2011.
On Wednesday the 16th of November 2011, at the Národné Tenisové Centrum in Bratislava, Slovakia, the two participants took up the challenge on indoor hard courts and after two hours and thirteen minutes the Slovak wildcard
entrant dismembered the second seeded Bulgarian by surviving a mid match fall of 6-1, 6-7(3), 6-3.
The Slovak, at the age of 17, had a strong defence and did not setup a single breakpoint opportunity for her adversary in the initial set where Kostova managed to secure three out of five breakpoints giving her a sixty percent
in the first set.
Second seeded Bulgarian Kostova won just twenty seven percent of her second-serve points and only thirty three percent of her second return points; she delivered three double faults and two aces hence, winning only thirty percent
of her total points won in the set which attributed to her loss of the opening set.
Schmiedlová opted to serve first and both the challengers successfully held their first serves to initiate the scoreboard at 1-1. It was in the third and the fourth game that the wildcard entrant took a mini lead with a hold of
serve and then by breaking her adversary in the fourth game. She then repeated the feat and as she held her serve for the last time, she clogged the opening set with a breadstick victory.
After Kostova had taken a beating in the first set she geared up for the second by pulling her socks up. During the first two games both the players expertly held their respective serves but in the third game Kostova broke and
then with a hold of serve took a mini lead by the end of the fourth game.
Subsequently, in the following two games the players exchanged breaks but Kostova was still leading the set. However Schmiedlová managed to reduce the deficit and brought the set to a tie at five games each by the end of the tenth
game.
As the two once more bartered in breaks the set was pushed into a tiebreaker. The head-to-head run lost steam as Kostova rushed past Schmiedlová with a series of breaks and holds to clinch the tiebreaker at 7-3.
Both the players had bagged a set apiece at the end of the second set and the decisive set was commenced by Schmiedlová. This time she got off to a good start as she was able to reel straight four games by capitalizing on two early
breaks at the end of the fourth game.
It was in the fifth game that the second seeded Bulgarian made a return by breaking back and then holding her serve to bag two games at the end of the sixth game. In the following two games the player once more held their respective
serves and as Schmiedlová held her serve for the last time, she sealed her victory of the set and the match.
Next up for the Slovak wildcard entrant is Ukrainian qualifier Lyudmyla Kichenok.
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