Ekaterina Makarova edges past Rebecca Marino into the second round – Rogers Cup 2011
Russian Ekaterina Makarova dumped local tennis star, Rebecca Marino in straight sets at the Rogers Cup 2011, a WTA Premier event held on the hard courts of Toronto, Canada. She earned a 7-6(6), 6-4 victory over the 20-year-old
Canadian to secure a second round spot on Monday.
Ranked 41st in the Sony Ericsson WTA rankings, Makarova maintained her winning streak against the Canadian, ranked two places above her, after trashing her in one hour and fifty minutes at the Rexall Centre. She last
overpowered Marino at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells earlier this season and after earning this success, the Russian extended the lead in their head-to-head series by 3-0.
The left handed Makarova confidently entered the Canadian courts and convincingly held her entire serves in front of the pessimist crowd. She founded a breakpoint opportunity in the eleventh game but squandered it. The set went
to a tie-breaker where the Russian prevailed to clinch the opener with a 7-6(6) score line. She capitalised on the many errors the local player spilled and registered an impressive 77 percent on her equal first serve share of 58 percent.
23-year-old Russian carried her winning ways in the final set and plucked entire serves through exquisite forehands from her box of tricks. She faced zero breakpoint and converted one out of four breakpoint opportunities to her
advantage in the last game to seal the set by winning six games to four. Makarova clobbered a much better first serve share of 55 percent as compared to Marino’s 32 percent and earned a magnificent 78 percent win on it.
The Russian will next face the eight seed, Italy’s Francesca Schiavone who received a bye into the second round after being a top eight player of this event.
31-year-old Schiavone hasn’t had much progress at the WTA events but she outshined everyone at Roland Garros and made a title round appearance in it. The Italian also made a quarter-final berth at Australian Open and last put in
a third round showing at Wimbledon.
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