Chen Liang/Ran Tian labour past Bondarenko/Koryttseva into 2nd round – WANLIMA Women’s Open 2011
Chinese wildcard entrants, Chen Liang and Ran Tian, bounces back to register a 4-6, 6-3, 12-10 victory over the Ukrainians, Alona Bondarenko and Mariya Koryttseva, at the first round of the WANLIMA Guangzhou International Women’s
Open 2011, a WTA event held on the outdoor hard courts in Guangzhou, China. They registered a three setter victory over the Ukrainians to confidently advance in this event on Monday.
The Chinese were a set down at their home soil when they re-focused their strategy to get back on track. It took them one hour and thirty-five minutes to tumble over Bondarenko and Koryttseva on their first meeting in order to
advance into the quarter-finals.
The higher ranked Ukrainians made a shaky start on the Chinese courts and went 1-3 down. However, they quickly counter attacked by snatching the break back in the proceeding game and subsequently level the scores at 3-3. Bondarenko
and Koryttseva then held their remaining serves and broke the Chinese’s serve again in the ninth game to win the opener with a 6-4 score line.
The Chinese duo dug their way back in the game and after removing all the flaws and improving their co-ordination; they rolled the balls perfectly onto the lines to reel off first four games in a row. They lost their serve in the
fifth game but kept remaining serves to seal the equaliser with a 6-3 win.
Both tandems played their best tennis in the super tie-breaker or the third set. They cancelled out each other by fishing out easy points on their serves and took the scores to 10-10. The Chinese, however, edged past Bondarenko
and Koryttseva after this and subsequently pocketed the decider with a 12-10 victory.
The winning combination of Liang and Tian manifested a slightly lower first serve share of 63 percent as opposed to their opponents’ 65 percent and registered a convincing 61 percent win on it. Furthermore, they warded off only
six out of nine breakpoints faced and converted three out of ten breakpoint chances to their advantage.
Up next for the wildcards is the winner of the match between second seeds, Italian Alberta Brianti and Croat Petra Martic, and French Taiwanese tandem of Iryna Bremond and Wen-hsin Hsu.
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