Dinara Safina/Galina Voskoboeva wins doubles crown at the Malaysian Open
Wildcard pair of Dinara Safina of Russia and Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan won the doubles titles at the BMW Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday. They defeated the duo of Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand and Jessica Moore of Australia in the final,
7-5, 2-6, 10-5, taking 84 minutes of play.
The winning pair displayed excellent coordination to outplay their opponents. Safina bagged the ninth doubles title of her career in Kuala Lumpur: her first in three years. The Russian strained hard throughout 2010 with persistent injuries, but put up a
vintage fight to win the Malaysian Open. Her pair stumbled a bit in the second set of the game but recovered very well to take the game away.
“It’s definitely always nice to win a tournament,” Safina told the press reporter in her post match reviews, “I’m kind of on the way back because I was injured all last year. I’m trying to play as many matches as I can, singles and doubles.”
It was a fairly poised contest, with momentum shifting in every set. Safina and Voskoboeva served with 65 per cent accuracy but spilled four double faults in process. Their opponents equally matched them with 62 per cent first serve and took half of their
serve points in the game.
Both pairs had an aggressive start to the contest, exchanging early serve breaks in the first set. Like any other doubles game, the match featured short rallies and plenty of net volleys. Safina and Voskoboeva were very proactive at the net and converted
many easy opportunities to their advantage.
Lertcheewakarn and Moore broke their opponents’ serve twice in the set. They awarded five break chances to their rivals who converted three of them to seal the opener at 7-5.
Although Safina and Voskoboeva served better in the following set, Lertcheewakarn and Moore proved far superior to their opponents. They won 75 per cent of their first serve points while being broken only once in the second set. Lertcheewakarn and Moore
collected three break points and served out of the set with utmost ease at 6-2.
It appeared as if the Australian and Thai duo will wipe out their competitors in the tie breaker but it went the other way. Safina and Voskoboeva merged their efforts very skillfully to outplay the other finalists. They served with an amazing percentage
of 88, winning four out of eight total serve points. Safina and Voskoboeva belted some thudding winners, exploiting the open cracks between their rivals and raced away to 10-5 to win the Malaysian Open title.
This is the first ever WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) title for the World number 560 Voskoboeva, who paired with Safina for the first time.
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