Flavia Pennetta dumps Anabel Medina Garrigues in the opening round – Dubai Championships 2012
World number 28, Flavia Pennetta, squashed the 26th ranked Spaniard, Anabel Medina Garrigues, in the opening round of Dubai Duty Free Championship. Both these players have played each other several
times so they knew each other game style. There was less time wasted in understanding each other and the Italian contestant was all over the Spaniard and took an hour and 31 minutes to book a spot in the next round with straight sets win 6-3, 6-3.
Pennetta started the clash with a successful serve game and her opponent followed her and registered a hold with scores moving to 1-1. Garrigues looked a bit worn out and lacked pace on her returns that allowed ample opportunity
for the Italian to pick his spot and place the ball at her will.
The Italian broke serve in the fourth game and carried her momentum with another breakthrough in the sixth game to knock-down the confidence of her rival. Garrigues could only win one break back with her opponent stamping
her authority and taking the lead.
It was getting pretty ominous for the Spaniard as she lost the opening serve game of the second set with her opponent cruising away to a 3-1 lead in no time. Pennetta registered another breakthrough and her opponent was totally
down and out with scores of 5-1 reflecting her feeble effort to make a comeback.
A swap of breakpoints at the end confirmed the triumph for the Italian who deserved to win the match after such a cracking display of all round shots especially her backhand cross-court returns were a treat to watch.
She was extremely happy on her win and stated in a post-match interview, “When the weather is like this it’s not easy to control the ball, so I was trying to be really aggressive to hit the ball. Because when you try just
to put the ball in the court it’s flying too much. So it’s better if you just go for the shot and not wait."
In another gruelling encounter, Julia Goerges of Germany bounced back a set down to crush the Russian doubles Australian Open champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova, to book a date with the reigning world number one, Victoria Azarenka,
in the next round. Azarenka received a Bye in the first round so she hasn’t opened her tournament account yet. The tournament is getting interesting with viewers getting enjoying the intensity in the matches.
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