Elena Bovina moves past Alize Lim into the main draw – XXIV SNAI Open 2011
World number 321, Elena Bovina of Russia is through to the first round of the tournament, after scoring an impressive victory over world number 214, Alize Lim of France in the final qualifying round of 2011 XXIV SNAI Open, here
on Monday.
The 28-year-old Russian crushed the Frenchwoman in straight sets 6-1, 6-3, taking one hour and thirty nine minutes of play.
This entertaining match was definitely a test of nerves for both the women but Bovina proved to be the better player as most of the bookmakers have never expected. She recorded her seventh victory of the running year to step up
into the opening round of the WTA (Women Tennis Association) tournament.
It was the first time the Russian faced Lim in any World Tour event but she proved her mettle to overcome the Frenchwoman in an easy contest, going one up in their head-to-head record.
The 6-ft-2 inches, Bovina outdid her French assailant in every section of the game and in the course of time she was first past the post in a match that lasted for about 99 minutes
Bovina carved out ten opportunities to break Lim’s serve and converted six of them en route to victory. Although Bovina herself encountered two serve breaks in the game, she kept scoring crucial points with harmony to gain the
major advantage in the contest.
Lim made a grubby start to the opener, and with a below average serve percentage of just 29 percent, she suffered an early break from the Russian but managed to grab a serve break in the opening game to tie the score at 1-all.
However, the aggressive Russian executed some glamorous groundstrokes to tighten her belt and was left serving for the set at 5-1.
She racked up 9 of 17 total service points and exclusively closed out the first set at 6-1 to go one up in the contest.
However, the Frenchwoman picked up the level of her game and had a tight rein on her own mistakes, stinging one serve break in the second set but the talented Russian was up to the task, breaking the Frenchwoman’s serve on two
different occasions. Bovina kept imposing massive pressure upon Lim, who had nothing but a rotten luck, losing the second set with three games to six.
With this win, the Russian qualifier got the entry into the first round of the tournament where she will meet eighth-seeded Petra Cetkovska of Czech Republic for the fourth time in her career.
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