Aravane Rezai avenges her loss against Elena Baltacha in quarterfinal – Texas Open 2011
The first upset of the Texas Open 2011 was between world number 61 Elena Baltacha against world number 114 Aravane Rezai during the pair’s quarterfinal match. The two were meeting for the third time and to everyone’s surprise French Rezai had scored a straight set victory of 6-2, 6-2 to secure a berth in the semi final.
The last time the two had met was just recently in Toronto at the Rogers Cup; Baltacha had managed to secure a second victory in her professional career against Rezai and was leading in the head-to-head. However, Rezai was able to restore her dignity finally in the third chance given to her by fate which was on hard courts of Hilton DFW Lakes, Texas
The first few moments in the match saw Baltacha as a stronger player as she was able to target 67% of her first serves and also had aced once but was unable to achieve a good score in her second service points which lost her points.
Rezai had a sturdy defence and was able to save all her break point opportunities and was also able to break her opponent twice. Moreover, she accomplished an exceptional first and second serve and won 66% of her total service points.
Although, Rezai had a mediocre return of 48% of total return points won, Baltacha had a poorer return accomplishing only a pitiable 34% of her total return points.
Rezai saw a comprehensive victory in the first set as she restricted her adversary to only two games.
The second set was also an easy victory for Rezai and she took a notch higher in her serve, just in case her rival thought of making a comeback. With strong and powerful strokes she hammered her way by accomplishing a 74% of her total service points against British Baltacha, who only mustered 6 out of 23 points, making it a deplorable 26% of the total return points.
Even though Baltacha had achieved a 51% of her total service points, she was unable to win the set because she lacked numbers against Rezai, who had a mediocre win of 49% in the total return points of the set.
With a meticulous serve and defence Rezai did not setup a single break point situation for her British rival and instead bagged the set by breaking her twice.
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