Flavia Pennetta dumps Carla Suarez Navarro in round two – BNP Paribas Open 2012
Italian tennis ace, Flavia Pennetta, plonked the 69th ranked Spaniard, Carla Suarez Navarro, to place a berth in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open. On Friday, both contestants faced-off for an hour and 24 minutes
before the Italian ended the resistance from the Spaniard; bagging the win in straight sets 6-3, 6-4.
It was the fourth encounter between the two mature tennis icons. Pennetta had won two encounters including the last one whilst Navarro was lucky only once. This triumph takes the head-to-head lead of the Italian to 3-1 and more
importantly she moves into the third round in Indian Wells.
The contest at the hard courts of California began in a dashing fashion. Both players traded breakthroughs to kick-off the match but shortly after a dramatic start, Pennetta dominated the proceedings and created five more opportunities
to break serve. She managed to convert just one of them but that was enough for her to bag the opening set.
World number 25 bagged 33 points in the opening set compared to just 28 from her counterpart. She also smashed an eye-startling ace during the fifth game of the set and exerted so much pressure on her opponent who committed four
double-faults that contributed to her loss.
Trailing one set down and looking extremely poor with her shot selection, Navarro started the second set well, holding her serve comprehensively. Unfortunately, her cameo was over in quick succession as Pennetta picked up the momentum
and broke serve in succession to take a resounding lead of 5-1.
Navarro fought back to clasp one breakthrough back but wasn’t good enough to diminish the trail completely. She lost the second set as well with a difference of ten points. The Italian was the dominating player in the second set.
She created six openings to break serve but converted a couple of them in her favour. It is a factor she needs to look upon if she has to progress into the advanced rounds of the tournament. Pennetta takes on the Pole superstar,
Agnieszka Radwanska, in the third round. It is going to be an enthralling battle.
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