Elena Bovina upsets sixth seed Irena Pavlovic in 2nd qualifying – Bell Challenge 2011
Un-seeded Russian Elena Bovina collided against number six seeded Irena Pavlovic in the qualifying second round of the Bell Challenge 2011. As the two took up t he gauntlet on the indoor hard courts of PEPS Laval University Campus,
Quebec City, Canada, the un-seeded Russian outfoxed the number six seeded in straight sets of 7-6(4), 6-3 in one hour and forty nine minutes.
The last time the two had met was at the French Open 2010, on clay courts the two battled it out during the first round of the event and Bovina had taken the second lead by winning in straight sets for the second time. Fate had
given yet another chance to Pavlovic to restore her dignity, but alas!
Serving first with confidence was Bovina as she had previously won in both their meetings. The players kept winning on their serves in alternate games and they tied the score first at 2-2 in the first four games. Then they tied
at 3-3 in the following two games and again after another two games at 4-4. In the tenth game the score was balanced at 5-5 and as the two again won on their own serves the set was pushed into a tie breaker.
As the two progressed into the tiebreaker, the Russian kicked into top gear as she broke service twice to secure an early 3-0 lead. Unable to bounce back or break the Russian, Pavlovic could do nothing but hold her own serve though
to no avail. Standing at 6-4, Bovina served out the set to clinch the tiebreaker 7-4, going one up in the set score.
Opening the second set was Bovina again and this time the players rallied long and hard to win on their serves and in the following seven games the two kept on winning on alternate serves to equalize the score at 3-3. In the seventh
game as Bovina won on her serve by smashing 2 successive aces at 30-30 she took an upper hand. In the eighth game Pavlovic targets the line with her forehand but then misses it by inches and gives the match to Bovina by double faulting.
Bovina secured a place in the final qualifying round of the Bell Challenge where she will be facing American third seeded Chichi Scholl.
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