Flavia Pennetta ousts Elena Vesnina to move into the last four – ASB Classic 2012
Italian fourth seed, Flavia Pennetta, inched one step closer to the season-opener title when she ousted the Russian tennis ace, Elena Vesnina, in straight sets 6-2, 6-1, on Wednesday. The encounter took place in Auckland,
New Zealand, during the quarter-final battle of ASB Classic tournament at hard courts. This was the fourth triumph for the Italian against the Russian and she improved the head-to-head tally to 4-2. She took just an hour and 8 minutes to overpower the 25-years-old
Russian.
Both players have met each other on 5 different occasions prior to their Wednesday’s encounter. Both players went neck-to-neck in the first four encounters but their last year’s meeting gave the lead to the Italian and this
triumph doubled her head-to-head victories. Sizeable crowd witnessed the one sided encounter as Italian sailed past her opponent, nailing her down in every aspect of the game.
Pennetta slammed her opponent right from the beginning of the match, as she broke in the first game and doubled her lead by hanging on to her serve. Vesnina bounced back with a break in the fourth game to level the score
but her glory was short lived as fourth seed broke back in the fifth game to take the lead. In the seventh game, the fourth seed played a perfectly paced drop shot, which proved absolutely unplayable for her opponent, to received a massive round of applause
from the spectators; she waved back to respond them.
Italian smashed an ace in the next game and sealed the first set win. She was fuming with confidence and commenced the second set with a successful break to her name. She held her serve and broke again to take 3-0 lead. There
was no coming back from that stage because the Italian fourth seed was cruising through the set; she didn’t wasted any opportunity as she moved on to take 4-0 lead in the set.
Vesnina was totally down and out; she couldn’t find a way back to reply such a massive onslaught. With crowd cheering every successful point won by the prolific Italian tennis ace, confidence of Vesnina was sinking further.
She held her serve for the first time in the fifth game but that was not more than a consolation win for her.
Pennetta continued the hammering and sealed the second set win with a perfectly placed doubled handed backhand shot that was good enough to provide her the third successful break of the set and a place in the semi-final of
the tournament.
Flavia Pennetta locks horns with German Angelique Kerber in the semi-final.
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