Arantxa Santonja floors Olga Govortsova to reach the second round – 2011 NURNBERGER Gastein Ladies
Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain continued her impressive run on the clay surface as she sealed an emphatic 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (5) victory over Belarusian Olga Govortsova on Tuesday to advance into the second round of 2011 NURNBERGER
Gastein Ladies in Bad Gastein, Austria.
Looking for a place in round two of the Women’s Tennis Association tournament, Santonja made a strong start to the match. She hit her cross court forehand winners to perfection and soon found herself leading the game score by 4-1.
Govortsova regrouped herself at that crucial stage and held on to her next two service game with ease but she couldn’t stop the Spaniard from going 1-0 up in the set score.
Looking for an entry back into the match, the Belarusian bounced back brilliantly in the following set. Executing her game plan to perfection, she created all sorts of problems for Santonja. Returning the ball incredibly well from
the baseline, she gave a hard time to the Spaniard on her serve. Breaking the serve three times in the set, Govortsova evened the set score to shift the momentum on her side.
Both players put up a great fight in the final set as they looked to win the psychological battle. Neither of them managed to get the serve break as the set went into a tie-breaker. Santonja, who is more experienced at the WTA
level, held her composure and played big points really well. Firing a blistering serve ace, she set up two match points for herself and then converted the second one to close out the match that lasted for more than 2 hours and 5 minutes.
Santonja dominated the challenger in almost all areas of the game. Her first serve conversions was an impressive 74 per cent while she secured 42 per cent of the points on her opponent’ serve. Hitting 10 serve aces in the match,
she was able to hit her way out of the trouble whenever it was required. She will be feeling very satisfied with the way she handled the pressure. However the Spaniard managed to convert only three out sixteen break points in the match suggesting that she
needs to work on this aspect of her game.
In the second round, Santonja will be facing compatriot Carla Suarez Navarro who crushed the Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 7-6 (7), 6-2. Santonja has not won a WTA title since she turned professional in 2000. Although she has
given some considerable results on the tour, she is yet to prove her metal. If she continued to play in the same fashion in her upcoming matches at the tournament, she could cause a few upsets.
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