Dekmeijere/ Zhang beat Arvidsson/ Krajicek in the quarterfinals – e-Boks Sony Ericsson Open 2011
In a gruelling and intense e-Boks Sony Ericsson Open quarterfinal match on Wednesday, the Latvian-Chinese duo of Liga Dekmeijere and Shuai Zhang finally found a way to put away a dogged pair of Sofia Arvidsson and Michaella Krajicek
6-1, 1-6, 10-5 to reach the semi-final of the tournament.
The Latvian-Chinese duo proved to be difficult opponents for the Swedish-Dutch pair of Arvidsson and Krajicek. Dekmeijere and Zhang delivered an awe-inspiring display on serve, and in particular, some jaw dropping defensive tennis
which frustrated the Swedish-Dutch duo no end.
It was a good opportunity for Arvidsson to reach the singles semi-finals for the first time in her career, but it turned out to be an off day for the Swede and her partner Krajicek. Nevertheless, Arvidsson tried her best and did
not let the second chance go begging, winning the second set with a breadstick. But, later in the final set Krajicek struggled with her first serve throughout and Arvidsson’s feeble shots at the net only helped the cause of the Latvian-Chinese pair.
The Latvian-Chinese duo, expectedly, was aggressive from the start of the match, but their opponents had the answers at almost every turn. The Latvian-Chinese duo of Dekmeijere and Zhang broke to lead and did not look back from
that point onwards. The winning pair did not muster single break point opportunity, a statistic that was a testament to their brutal serving play.
The strong show by Zhang turned out to be the real difference between the two teams as had a great command over her strokes. The Latvian-Chinese duo’s booming serve and powerful ground strokes were sufficient enough to hold the
serve in the final set. Dekmeijere and Zhang successfully managed to overcome second set jitters against their opponents to enter the quarterfinal of the tournament.
Arvidsson and Krajicek had more aces in the match at with three to the winning pair’s one and a nice winning percentage of 67 percent from first serve. The bad news was that their 57 percent of points on total service was still
lower than Dekmeijere and Zhang’s 60 percent. Unforced errors and Double-faults told the biggest story, as Arvidsson and Krajicek had two to winning duo’s none.
Up next for the Latvian-Chinese pair is the American-duo of Alexa Glatch and Ahsha Rolle in the next round of the tournament. Glatch and Rolle made light work of the Italian-Croat duo of Alberta Brianti and Petra Martic in the
first round to make it this far.
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