Elena Vesnina surprises Petra Martic to reach the semi-finals – Budapest Grand Prix 2012
A huge upset was seen in the quarter-final rounds of the Budapest Grand Prix when the sixth seeded Croat contender, Petra Martic, was slain by the unseeded Russian competitor, Elena Vesnina, on Thursday. The 78th ranked
Russian registered an emphatic victory over the world number 51, Martic, in an assertive fashion, wrapping up the proceedings in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2, to reach the semi-final draw of the tournament.
The local crowd on the outdoor hard courts of Budapest, Hungary, was expecting Martic to continue her sublime run of form in the quarter-final round but the Croat went through a terrible slump to suffer a humiliating defeat. Being
the sixth seed in the tournament draw, Martic was deemed as one of the hot favourites for winning the title but her sloppy performance in the round of eight was not good enough to contain the fury of Vesnina.
It was in Cincinnati, USA, last year when Martic won a taxing three-setter against Vesnina for the first time in her career but it was the payback time for the Russian this time round. Vesnina not improved her year-to-date winning
record to 7-8 but also levelled the head-to-head series against the superior-ranked Croat at 1-1.
It was a fairly one-sided battle and Vesnina’s dominance prevailed for most of the time in the match. She faced limited resistance from the 21-year-old Croatian and brought all of her professional experience into play to hunt her
down in style. The Russian clinched 25 out of 34 first serve points in the match and broke her opponent’s serve four out of 10 times en route to victory. She suffered merely one break point in the entire matchup from Martic and cruised through both sets to
register a comprehensive victory.
"I'm really happy to be in my first semi-final this year and finally I'm playing good and enjoying my tennis," Vesnina said in her post match reviews, "It was a strange beginning to match because we went on court and then it started
raining so we went back to the locker room and then we came back! Petra is a young, talented player and I knew I had to move her around. The score doesn't represent the match because it was actually really close and it could easily have been 63 62 to Petra."
Vesnina is up against the fifth seed Kiwi tennis ace, Marina Erakovic, in the semi-final round of the Budapest Grand Prix. Erakovic took down Czech Republic’s Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, in the quarter-final clash on Thursday to
book adate with Vesnina in the round of four.
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