Caroline Wozniacki bounces back to advance to the quarters at BNP Paribas Open
World number one, Dane Caroline Wozniacki rallied past the in-form world number 24, Russian Alisa Kleybanova 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the final eight at the 2011 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells on Tuesday.
The 22nd seeded Russian, who beat Kim Clijsters here last year, gave a tough time to top seed as she came on fire in the first set. Kleybanova broke the Dane’s serve in the very first game and held her serve in the next.
Later both held their serves until the Russian broke Wozniacki’s serve again in the seventh game to win the set 6-2. Despite having a slightly lower first serve percentage of 55 percent as opposed to Wozniacki’s 57 percent, Kleybanova earned an awesome 91
percent win on it. She also earned more on her return points.
Talking about her match, Wozniacki said, "I think I made a few too many unforced errors in the beginning. She was very aggressive at the start. In the second set I just told myself I needed to move my feet more and have a little
bit more margin over the net... Things started to go my way."
The 20-year-old Wozniacki, who has a 15-3 win-loss record this season so far, re-formed and re-focused herself in the second set. She recently won title at Dubai after trashing 16th seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova
with a breadstick. She also reached the final at Doha before losing to 2nd seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva. She held her serve in the first game and broke the Russian’s serve in the fourth to take lead 3-1. Kleybanova got on track and broke the Dane’s
serve in the seventh game to lower the trail 3-4. In the eighth game Wozniacki proved her top rank status as she once more broke Kleybanova and then held her serve to win the set at 6-3, levelling the set score.
Wozniacki carried her winning ways into the final set and broke the Russian’s serve in the very first game. She then broke Kleybanova’s serve two more times to clinch the set with a breadstick. The Russian double faulted in the
last game which helped Dane convert her break point. Not only this, Kleybanova played poorly in this final set as she had a really low first serve percentage of 32 percent as compared to Wozniacki’s amazing 83 percent.
The Dane has not lost a set in either of her two previous meetings against Kleybanova which were in 2009 but after losing a set, she still managed to win. She has now extended her head-to-head lead to 3-0.
She will next face 8th seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka who reached this spot after a comeback win against the 9th seeded Pole Agnieszka Radwanska in a three-set thriller 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3).
Wozniacki leads Azarenka in their head to head by 3-2. They know each other from their junior days. Wozniacki said, "But when you're on the court you don't think about who's on the other side."
It will be a great duel amongst the seeded players and the Dane is in full confidence to dump her out of the tournament.
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