Daniela Hantuchova beats Arantxa Rus in an epic opening round battle – Luxembourg Open 2012
World number 38, Daniela Hantuchova, won an all-blonde contest against the 69th ranked Dutch, Arantxa Rus, in the opening round of the BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open on Wednesday. She bounced back a set down to register
a heroic win with the scores of 3-6, 6-4, 6-1. The battle lasted an hour and 50 minutes.
While conducting a post-match press conference, Hantuchova said, “I made it a little bit difficult for myself today, but I'm happy with the way I kept fighting and eventually turned it around. I was making way too many errors at
the beginning, rushing and going for winners I shouldn't really have gone for.”
She further added, “Once I found my rhythm in the second set, I was slowly getting on top of her and I did well to win that game at 4-4. In the third set I was playing my best tennis finally and really starting to dominate.”
Rus failed to hold serve in the first game of the match but bounced back emphatically well to grab two successive breakthroughs in the fourth and sixth game to take a lead of 4-2. The Slovak failed to fight back with a breakthrough
and lost the opening phase of the match.
Both players played a tradition contest in the second phase of the match except a swap of breakpoints that happened in the midst of the set. Scores were tied at 4-4 and the 29-year-old Slovak was serving to disallow her opponent
from any critical breakpoint. She accomplished the task and coupled it with a breakpoint in the following game to enforce the final set into play.
The 21-year-old Dutch was extremely gutted to have not finished the contest in the second set. She lost three breakpoints in a row courtesy to distraction in mind after the second set. She wasn’t able to test her opponent at all
and just survived seven games in the final set.
Talking about her next opponent Flipkens, Hantuchova added, “She played very well last week and also in Québec City before that. I think indoors suits her game.”
Kirsten Flipkens and Daniela Hantuchova will lock horns on Friday.
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