Flavia Pennetta beats Evgeniya Rodina in the second round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
Flavia Pennetta has advanced into the third round at the Wimbledon Championships as she dismissed Russian Evgeniya Rodina in the two quick sets on Thursday 6-4, 6-2.
Pennetta served at 54 percent and won a whopping 81 percent, but most importantly the Italian’s main strength yesterday was the way she attacked on Rodina’s serve. The Italian did not squander any break point opportunity as she
converted four of four that Rodina yielded in a match that lasted for 60 minutes.
The 22-year-old Muscovite was not able to continue with the form she displayed in upsetting South Africa’s Chanelle Scheepers on Wednesday, losing the match in straight sets.
Rodina kicked off the opener very solidly but Pennetta immediately upped the level of her game, breaking the Russian in the tenth game of the opening set. The Italian had a couple of wobbles on her way to serving out the first
set, letting a couple of set points slip away in the ninth game before sealing the set in the tenth game.
The second set began in the same way, with the Italian getting an early break after Rodina found the net. Pennetta seemed relaxed, and then conjured up one of the shots that took her to 4-1 lead in the decider. However, that was
eclipsed by a brilliant forehand down the line from Rodina in the eighth game but it was only for the very few highlights for the 22-year-old Russian, who went on to lose the set and the match, eventually.
The Italian No.2 wrapped up her clean effort with a whopping 26 winners while committing eleven unforced errors. Moreover, she clinched 81 percent of points on her first serve, 61 percent of points on second serve, and a total
of 28 of 55 points on return. In contrast, Rodina finished off the match with 47 percent of points behind her first serve, 52 percent of points behind her second serve, and a total of 14 of 50 points on return.
With this win, the 29-year-old Pennetta has revised her year-to-date win/loss mark to 17/10 matches and not to mention, beating the Russian for the first time in her career, she now leads their head-to-head series to 1-0.
Pennetta now marches on into the third round of the tournament where she has to wait to know her third round opponent, as the conflict between France’s Marion Bartoli and Spain’s Lourdes Dominguez Lino is settled.
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