Francesca Schiavone overpowers Klara Zakopalova to reach the round four – Wimbledon 2012
Former French Open champion, Francesca Schiavone of Italy, had no troubles in overcoming the limited resistance posed by the world number 31, Klara Zakopalova, in the third round of the Wimbledon Championships on Saturday afternoon.
The current world number 26 wrapped up victory comfortably in straight sets, 6-0, 6-4, to reach the round of 16 at the grass court Grand Slam event in London, England.
The 24th seed Italian was facing Zakopalova after almost eight years and sustained the clean sheet against the Czech contender. Schiavone outplayed her twice in 2004, including an opening round win in the US Open Championships,
and her Saturday’s victory gave her a 3-0 lead in the head-to-head series against her.
30-year-old Zakopalova was off to a sloppy start in the opening set of the match and let her opponent to take hold of the proceedings early. Her bleak serve and prone baseline defence was not strong enough to restrain the 24th
seed Italian from launching an all-round onslaught right from the beginning. Schiavone didn’t waste any time in gaining control of the proceedings and nailed three successive breaks of serve to race away to 5-0 with a blink of an eye. She served out of the
opener convincingly with a bagel, 6-0, to get one up in the match.
Schiavone’s 12 unforced errors in the following set allowed the Czech opponent to settle a bit in the contest but her drought of break points still hampered her way to have any sort of impact on the contest. The Italian veteran
needed just one break of serve to get into the lead and then held it until the conclusion of the contest at 6-4. She won 26 out of 50 first serve points and belted just eight winners en route to victory.
It was the Italian’s 20th victory of the running season, improving her winning record to 20-17 for the year. Schiavone is struggling to get back her vintage form in the current professional circuit and has one WTA (Women’s
Tennis Association) title in her bag before coming to London. The 32-year-old is one of the strong contenders for the Grand Slam glory at Wimbledon and her voyage has been quite impressive so far.
Schiavone has a much tougher challenge in the fourth round as she will have to face the defending champion, world number four Petra Kvitova, for a place in the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon Championships on Monday afternoon.
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