Chanelle Scheepers surprises Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the opening round – Brussels Open 2012
Sheer dismay for the Russian tennis fans, as the ninth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova crashed out of the opening round of the Brussels Open at the hands of the 45th ranked South African, Chanelle Scheepers, on Tuesday.
The world number 24 suffered a 5-7, 2-6, defeat in straight sets to let Scheepers through to the round of 16 at this outdoor clay court event in Brussels, Belgium.
The 20-year-old Russian diva hung in the contest for one hour and 37 minutes before submitting to the hard hitting South African in the second set of the match. Pavlyuchenkova appeared out of form and spilled a number of unforced
errors all over the clay court to gift away easy points to her opponent. The ninth seed Russian posed some early resistance in the first set but gradually lost all her steam in the following set.
28-year-old South African veteran had suffered two defeats on clay surface at the hands of Pavlyuchenkova. She once lost at the 2008 Roland Garros and then last year at the Rome Masters but it was the payback time for her on Tuesday.
Scheepers was absolutely ballistic throughout the contest, belting assertive winners on regularity and making the most of her opportunities to come out as the winner. She has now curtailed her head-to-head trial to 1-2 against Pavlyuchenkova.
Despite coughing eight double faults in the match, Scheepers clinched 26 out of 42 first serve points and 16 out of 36 return points on her opponent’s serve to claim victory. The decisive factor in the match was her proficiency
of converting break points. The unseeded South African nailed six out of nine serve breaks, whilst Pavlyuchenkova’s three out of seven break point conversions fell short of taking down the veteran competitor. A total of 128 points were played in the contest,
with Scheepers winning 73 and the ninth seed Russian lingering far behind at 55 points to finish on the losing side in the end.
Up next for Scheepers in the second round draw of the Brussels Open is the local wildcard entrant, Alison van Uytvanck. The Belgian ousted Ksenia Pervak of Kazakhstan in the opening round of thte tournament earlier.
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